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UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  EACILITY 

II         1    1 

Barnard 

A  Discourse  on  the  Life, 
Services  and  Character 
of  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


cX 


A  DISCOURSE 


THE  LIFE,   SEEVICES  AND  CHARACTER 


STEPHEN  VAN  RENSSELAER; 

DELIVERED   BEFORE 

THE    ALBANY    INSTITUTE, 
APRIIi  15,  1839. 


AN  mSTORICAL  SKETCH 

OF   THE    COLONY   AND   MANOR 

OF 
IN 

AN    APPENDIX. 


By  DANIEL   d!    BARNARD. 


ALBANY: 
PRINTED  BY  HOFFMAN  &  WHITE. 

1839. 


[Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  thirty-nbe,  by  HoTTHAir  &  White,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the 
Northern  District  Court  of  New-York.] 


CORRESPONDENCE.  Vr^^TP^r 


Hon.  Danikl  D.  Babnard. 
DxAB  Sir,     ^ 

At  a  meetuig  of  the  Albany  Institute,  held  April  15,  1839,  it  was 
unanimously  Resolved,  that  the  thanks  of  the  Institute  be  presented  to  the 
Hon.  Daniel  D.  Barnard,  for  his  able  and  interesting  Discourse  on  the  Life 
and  Services  of  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish 
a  copy  of  the  same  for  publication. 

As  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Arrangements,  I  have  been  instructed 
to  make  this  communication. 

I  remain,  with  sendraents  of  high  respect  and  esteem, 
Yours  truly. 


T.  ROMEYN  BECK. 


April  16, 1839. 


<  Albany,  April  17,  1839. 

DxAR  Sir, 

My  Discourse  on  the  Life  and  Services  of  our  late  President,  Stephen  Van 
Rensselaer,  having  been  prepared  and  delivered  at  the  request  of  the  Insd^ 
tute,  the  Manuscript  will  be  placed  at  the  disposed  of  that  Body. 

With  great  respect  and  regard, 
I  am,  dear  sir. 

Faithfully  yours, 

D.  D.  BARNARD^ 
Dr.  T.  RoMXTN  BicK. 


1503332 


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ADVERTISEMENT. 


Those  who  did  the  Author  the  honor  to  attend  the  delivery  of 
this  Discourse,  will  find  in  it  some  passages  and  paragraphs  which 
were  then  omitted  for  the  sake  of  brevity. 

The  Historical  Sketch  contained  in  the  Appendix,  was  read  be- 
fore the  Institute  at  one  of  its  regular  meetings ;  and  has  been 
thought  of  sufficient  public  interest,  to  be  worth  preserving.  It 
was  prepared  chiefly  from  a  personal  examination  of  the  Manu- 
script Records  in  the  Office  of  the  Secretary  of  State  at  Albany. 
It  is  presented,  by  request,  in  connection  with  the  Discourse  de- 
livered before  the  Institute,  as  belonging  not  inappropriately  to  the 
subject  and  the  occasion;  indeed,  it  will  be  seen  that  it  formed 
originally  a  part  of  the  Discourse  itself,  from  which  it  was  neces- 
sarily severed  on  account  of  its  length — its  place  being  supplied  in 
the  body  of  that  paper  by  a  brief  reference  to  some  of  the  leading 
facts  contained  in  the  Sketch. 


.uOHj8-i  .''d       I  09i: 


DISCOURSE. 


The  Albany  Institute,  embracing  in  its  objects 
a  wide  field  for  observation  and  study,  is  made  up 
of  three  principal  Departments,  each  having  its 
President,  Vice-President,  and  other  appropriate 
Officers.     It  was  formed  originally  by  the  union 
of  two  Societies  previously  existing  under  sepa- 
rate charters.    At  the  organization  of  the  Insti- 
tute, on  the  5th  of  May,  1824,  Stephen  Van 
Rensselaer,  then  at  Washington  as  the  Repre- 
sentative in  Congress  from  this  District,  was 
unanimously  selected  to  preside  over  its  delibera- 
tions.    He  filled,  at  the  time,  the  Presidency  of 
the  Albany  Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  hence- 
forth to  be  merged  in  the  Institute  5  and  there 
was  every  thing  in  his  position  and  standing,  as 
well  as  in  his  direct  connection  in  many  ways 
with  the  objects  of  the  new  Society,  to  make  the 


8 

compliment  of  the  selection  deserved  and  proper  ^ 
yet  it  was  found  that  his  own  regards,  with  cha- 
racteristic modesty,  had  been  directed  towards 
another  worthy  and  eminent  citizen,  as  fittest  to 
occupy  the  Chair;  and  it  was  only  after  much 
hesitation  and  reluctance  that  he  communicated 
to  a  friend  on  the  spot,  his  permission  and  request 
to  decide  the  question  of  acceptance  or  refusal 
for  him.  It  hardly  need  be  added  that  the  office 
was  promptly  accepted  in  his  behalf.  By  the 
Charter  of  the  Institute,  this  office  is  made  elec- 
tive annually ;  and  every  year,  since  the  same 
agreeable  act  was  first  performed,  and  with  the 
same  unanimity,  have  the  Members  of  this  So- 
ciety offered  the  same  grateful  testimonial  of 
their  respect  and  affection  for  their  beloved  Presi- 
dent. Alas !  my  Friends  and  Fellow-Members, 
that  offering  of  ours  has  been  made  for  the  last 
time.  We  are  now  called,  in  common  with  the 
whole  country,  to  mourn  his  loss.  He  departed 
this  life  on  Saturday,  the  twenty-sixth  day 
OF  January  last.  It  was  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  of  a  day  which  had  dawned  upon  him 
with  as  fair  a  promise  of  closing  on  him  in  life, 
as  any,  perhaps,  which  he  had  seen  for  the  last 


9 

two  years,  that  in  a  small  Cabinet  of  his  ample 
mansion,  which  his  infirmities  had  made  his  chief 
asylum  and  sanctuary  for  many  months,  sitting  in 
his  chair,  with  just  warning  enough  to  CMivey 
the  intimation  to  his  own  mind  that  his  hour  had 
come,  without  enough  of  previous  change  serious- 
ly to  alarm  the  fears  of  anxious,  watchful  and 
trembling  hearts  around  him,  the  venerable  man 
bowed  his  head,  and  died. 

In  the  affecting  ceremonies  of  his  funeral,  the 
Members  of  the  Institute  had  their  humble  part. 
It  had  been  resolved,  in  special  session,  that  they 
would  attend  the  funeral  of  their  President  in  a 
body.  This,  however,  was  not  all  their  duty.  It 
was  thought  to  belong  appropriately  to  them  to 
gather  up  the  memorials  of  his  life  and  services, 
and  cause  them  to  be  arranged  and  presented  be- 
fore the  Society  in  a  regular  Discourse.  It  has 
pleased  those  whose  charge  it  was  to  make  the 
selection,  to  assign  the  duty  of  preparing  and  pre- 
senting this  tribute,  to  me.  They  might  have 
found  many  to  perform  the  service  more  accepta- 
bly 5  not  one,  since  the  time  had  come  when  the 
duty  must  be  discharged  by  some  body,  to  whom 
it  could  have  been  a  more  grateful  office. 


10 

In  entering  on  the  execution  of  this  trust,  I 
should  have  been  glad,  if  time  had  permitted,  to 
have  claimed  the  indulgence  of   my  audience, 
first  of  all,  to  carry  them  back  to  a  period  in  his- 
tory somewhat  remote  from  the  times  to  which 
the  distinguished  subject  of  this  Memoir  more  im- 
mediately belonged.     Some  of  the  acts  of  his  in- 
dividual career,  and  the  traits  of  his  beautiful 
character,  v/hen  we  should  reach  them  in  the 
progress  of  our  narrative,  would,  I  think,  have 
developed  themselves  much  the  more  strongly 
for  the  light  which  might  thus  have  been  thrown 
on  them  from  the  past.     They  would  have  been 
found,  some  of  them  at  least,  to  have  been  linked 
backward,  by  unbroken  chains,  to  the  times  and 
events  of  other  and   even  distant   generations. 
Men's  virtues,  any  more  than  their  vices,  are  not 
all  their  ovm.     To  some  extent  they  are  inheritors 
of  virtues,  and  to  some  extent  they  are  moulded 
by  circumstances.  They  may  be  trained  in  schools 
of  which  the  masters  are  dead  long  and  long  be- 
fore, and  of  which  nothing  remains  but  the  trans- 
mitted lessons  that  were  taught  without  intending 
to  teach  them.     In  his  personal  history,  Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer  was  subjected  to  the  strong  influence 


11 

of  great  events — events  powerfully  affecting  pro- 
perty, and  rights,  and  ideas,  and  character.  He 
was  born  the  subject  of  a  King,  and  he  was  born 
to  a  Chartered  Inheritance,  which  gave  him  the 
right  to  a  considerable  share  of  Feudal  honors 
and  Feudal  power  5  at  twenty-one,  however,  he 
had  become,  through  a  forcible  and  bloody  Revo- 
lution, a  citizen  of  a  free  Republic,  with  only  his 
own  share,  as  such,  with  all  his  fellow-citizens,  in 
the  popular  sovereignty  of  the  country.  He  was 
the  proprietary  of  a  remarkable  landed  interest — 
remarkable  for  any  country — connecting  him 
and  his  affairs  directly  with  an  ancestry,  and 
through  that  ancestry  with  a  people,  in  a  portion 
of  whose  doings  and  history  are  bound  up  some  in- 
teresting and  valuable  materials  for  the  proper 
illustration  of  events  and  characters  in  later  and 
even  present  times,  in  this  part  of  our  country. 
As  such  proprietary,  looking  to  the  earlier  periods 
of  his  life,  he  represented,  in  his  own  person,  a 
state  of  things  in  regard  to  property  and  its  inci- 
dents, and  the  structure  of  social  and  political  in- 
stitutions, which  in  his  ovm  time  and  in  his  own 
hands,  passed  away  forever — ^not,  however,  with- 
out leaving  behind  them  their  strongly-marked 


12 

and  indelible  traces  j  and,  looking  at  him  from 
the  days  of  his  manhood  onward,  he  was,  in  his 
character  and  in  his  relations,  a  living  witness 
and  illustration  of  some  important  contributions 
which  a  former  age  had  made  to  the  present,  and 
by  which  the  features  of  the  latter,  as  stamped 
by  a  new  order  of  things,  were  not  a  little  modi- 
fied. Undoubtedly  we  change  with  the  times; 
yet  no  age  can  choose  but  wear,  more  or  less 
strongly,  the  lineaments  of  its  parent  age — the 
complexion,  even  a  very  great  way  off,  will  shew 
a  tinge  from  the  blood  that  was  in  the  original 
fountain.  He,  the  subject  of  our  present  reflec- 
tions, stood,  in  one  sense,  between  the  present  and 
the  past ;  between  two  distinct  and  even  opposite 
orders  of  things,  and  he  belonged  in  a  manner  to 
both.  His  life  reached  forward  well  into  the 
heart  of  the  Republican  system — and  the  whole 
country  did  not  contain  a  more  thorough  Repub- 
lican than  he  was — while  his  days  ran  back  to  a 
period  when  a  feudal  Aristocracy,  of  which  he 
was  himself  a  part,  had  a  legalized  and  legitimate 
growth  in  the  soil  of  this  our  native  land.  He 
was  a  thorough  Republican,  in  a  Republican 
State,  and  yet  he  bore  to  his  death,  by  common 


13 

courtesy  and  consent — never  claimed  but  always 
conceded — the  hereditary  title  which  had  ancient- 
ly attached  to  the  inheritance  to  which  he  had 
been  born. 

The  title,  as  is  well  known  to  you,  by  which 
he  was  usually  addressed  and  spoken  of  amongst 
us,  was  that  of  Patroon.  This  title  was  derived, 
evidently,  from  the  Civil  Law,  and  the  Institu- 
tions of  Rome.  In  the  time  of  the  Roman  Re- 
public, the  Latin  Patronus  was  used  to  denote  a 
Patrician,  who  had  certain  of  the  people  under 
his  immediate  protection,  and  for  whose  interests 
he  provided  by  his  authority  and  influence.  At  a 
later  period,  and  after  the  power  of  Rome  had 
been  greatly  extended  by  her  conquests,  individu- 
als and  families  of  the  noble  order,  became  Pa- 
trons of  whole  Cities  and  Provinces,  and  this 
protective  authority,  with  large  and  extensive 
legal  and  political  rights  and  powers,  in  some  in 
stances  descended  by  inheritance.  The  family 
of  the  Claudii  was  vested  with  this  patronage 
over  the  Lacedemonians  5  and  that  of  the  Mar- 
celli  over  the  Syracusans.  It  was  partly  from 
this  source,  it  may  well  be  supposed,  that  the 
Dutch,  who  had  adopted  the  Civil  Law,  derived 


u 

the  idea  of  governing  a  remote  territory,  not 
easily  to  be  reached  by  the  Central  Authorities, 
by  committing  it  to  the  ample  Jurisdiction  of  a 
Patroon.*  This  title  was  not  applied  in  Holland, 
so  far  as  I  know,  to  any  order  in  the  State  there, 
nor  was  it  employed  in,  or  by,  any  other  of  the 
Countries  of  Europe.  It  was  not  a  title  of  per- 
sonal nobility,  as  that  term  is  understood  in 
Europe  since  the  time  when  Monarchs  assumed 
the  right  of  conferring  these  distinctions  by  crea- 
tion or  patent.  It  belonged  exclusively  to  the 
Proprietors  of  leirge  Estates  in  lands,  occupied  by 
a  Tenantry  5  and  like  the  title  of  Seignior,  which 
the  French  bestowed  with  the  Seigniories,  or  large 
territorial  estates  and  jurisdictions  in  Lower 
Canada,  on  the  first  colonization  of  that  country, 
it  was  deemed  especially  proper  for  Transatlan- 
tic use.  Yet  it  had  attached  to  it,  in  connection 
with  proprietorship,  the  usual  incidents  and  privi- 
leges of  the  old  feudal  Lordships,  in  direct  imita- 
tion of  which,  both  title  and  estate,  with  their  ju- 

*  I  have  seen  the  "J«*  Patronatus"  of  the  Roman  Law  expressly  re- 
ferred to,  in  an  OfEcial  MS.  of  the  Dutch  Authorities  themselves,  as  the 
foundation  of  the  powers  and  jurisdiction  committed  to  the  Fatroons  of  New 
Netherlands. 


15 

risdictions,  were  instituted.  It  may  be  added  as 
worth  remarking,  that,  in  the  case  before  us,  this 
title  has  run  on,  and  been  regularly  transmitted, 
with  the  blood  of  the  first  Patroon,  down  to  our 
day,  though  it  is  now  a  Century  and  three  Quar- 
ters since  the  Inheritance  ceased  to  be  a  Dutch 
Colony,  to  which  alone  the  title  properly  attach- 
ed, and  became,  by  Royal  authority,  after  a 
foreign  conquest,  an  English  Manorial  possession  5 
and  though,  in  later  time,  a  Revolution  has  inter- 
vened by  which  the  Estate  was  fully  shorn  of  its 
Manorial  character  and  attributes,  leaving  to  the 
proprietor,  now  for  the  last  fifty  years,  to  hold  his 
property  merely  by  the  same  simple  tenure  and 
ownership,  with  which  every  freeholder  in  the 
country  is  invested. 

Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  was  the  fifth  only  in  the 
direct  line  of  descent  from  the  original  proprie 
tor  and  Patroon  of  the  Colony  of  Rensselaer- 
wyck.  This  personage,  the  founder  of  the  Colo- 
ny, was  a  man  of  substance  and  character.  He 
was  a  merchant  of  Amsterdam,  in  Holland, 
wealthy,  and  of  high  consideration  in  his  class,  at 
a  time  when  the  Merchants  of  Holland  had  be- 
come, in  effect,  like  those  of  Italy,  the  princes  of 


16 

the  land.  He  was  that  Killian  Van  Rensselaer 
referred  to  in  our  recent  Histories  as  having  had 
a  principal  share  in  the  first  attempts  made  by 
the  Dutch  towards  colonization  in  America. 

I  think  this  occasion  would  have  been  held  to 
justify  a  more  particular  reference  to  the  part 
which  this  Ancestor  of  the  late  Mr.  Van  Rens- 
selaer had  in  American  Colonization,  and  espe- 
cially at  the  important  point  where  we  are  now 
assembled  5  and  that  it  would  not  have  been  out 
of  place,  to  have  introduced  the  personal  memoirs 
of  the  latter,  by  a  portion  at  least  of  that  curious 
and  hitherto  neglected  history  which  attaches  to 
the  Colony  and  Manor  of  Rensselarwyck — that 
identical  landed  estate  and  inheritance,  which, 
nearly  in  its  original  integrity,  though  stript  of 
its  accessories,  we  have  seen  held  and  enjoyed,  in 
our  time,  by  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  first  Pro- 
prietor. But  the  unavoidable  length  to  which  the 
briefest  outline  of  that  History  runs — though 
fully  prepared,  after  the  labor  of  considerable  re- 
search— has  compelled  me,  reluctantly  I  confess, 
to  lay  it  entirely  aside.  I  must  needs  content 
myself  now  with  some  very  general  facts  and  ob- 
servations in  this  connection. 


17 

Killian  Van  Rensselaer — to  whom  I  just  now 
referred — was  a  large  proprietor,  and  a  Director 
in  the  Amsterdam  Branch  of  the  Dutch  West 
India  Company.  This  Company  was  incorpora- 
ted in  1621,  and  was  composed  of  an  associate 
band  of  merchant-warriors  and  chiefs,  with  a 
chartered  domain  and  jurisdiction  as  well  for  con- 
quests, as  for  trade  and  colonization,  extending  in 
Africa  from  Cancer  to  the  Cape,  and  in  America 
from  the  extreme  South  to  the  frozen  regions  of  the 
North,  and  with  the  right  to  visit  and  to  fight  in 
every  sea  where  their  own  or  a  national  enemy 
could  be  found.  Ample  powers  of  government 
also  attended  them  every  where.  After  they  had 
obtained  a  footing  in  this  country,  a  College  of 
Nine  Commissioners  was  instituted  to  take  the 
superior  direction  and  charge  of  the  affairs  of 
New  Netherland.  Killian  Van  Rensselaer  was 
a  member  of  this  College.  This  was  in  1629. 
The  same  year,  a  liberal  Charter  of  Privileges  to 
Patroons  and  others  was  obtained  from  the  Com- 
pany. Colonization  by  the  Dutch  had  its  origin 
and  foundation  in  this  extraordinary  Instrument. 
The  same  Instrument  provided  also  for  founding 
a  landed  and  Baronial  Aristocracy  for  the  Pro- 


18 

vinces  of  the  Dutch  in  the  New  World.  Early 
in  the  next  year,  with  the  design  of  establishing 
his  Colony  under  the  Charter,  Van  Rensselaer 
sent  out  an  Agency,  when  his  first  purchase  of 
land  was  made  of  the  Indian  Owners,  and  sanc- 
tioned by  the  Authorities  of  the  Company  at 
New  Amsterdam.  Other  purchases  were  made 
for  him  in  subsequent  years,  until  1637,  when,  his 
full  complement  of  territory  having  been  made 
up— nearly  identical  with  the  Manor  of  our  day, 
and  forming,  as  subsequently  defined,  a  tract  of 
about  twenty-four  miles  in  breadth  by  forty-eight 
in  length — Killian  Van  Rensselaer  himself  came 
to  take  chfirge  of  his  Colony.  Many  of  his  colo- 
nists were  already  here,  and  others  were  sent  out 
to  him — all  at  his  own  cost.  The  full  comple- 
ment for  his  Colony,  required  by  the  Charter, 
was  one  hundred  and  fifty  adult  souls,  to  be  plant- 
ed within  four  years  from  the  completion  of  his 
purchases. 

The  power  of  the  Patroon  of  that  day  was 
analagous  to  that  of  the  old  feudal  Barons  5 
acknowledging  the  Government  at  New- Amster- 
dam, and  the  States  General,  as  his  Superiors. 
He  maintained  a  high  military  and  judicial  au- 


thority  within  his  territorial  hmits.  He  had  his 
own  fortresses,  planted  with  his  own  cannon,  man- 
ned with  his  own  soldiers,  with  his  own  flag 
waving  over  them.  The  Courts  of  the  Colony 
were  his  own  Courts,  where  the  gravest  questions 
and  the  highest  crimes  were  cognizable ;  but 
with  appeals  in  the  more  important  cases.  Jus- 
tice was  administered  in  his  own  name.  The 
Colonists  were  his  immediate  subjects,  and  took 
the  oath  of  fealty  and  allegiance  to  him. 

The  position  of  the  Colony  was  one  of  extreme 
delicacy  and  danger.  It  was  situated  in  the 
midst  of  warlike  and  conquering  Tribes  of  Sav- 
ages, which,  once  angered  and  aroused,  were 
likely  to  give  the  Proprietors  as  much  to  do  in 
the  way  of  defence,  and  in  the  conduct  of  hostile 
forays,  as  were  used  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  those 
bold  Barons  of  the  Middle  Ages,  whose  castles 
and  domains  were  perpetually  surrounded  and  be- 
seiged  by  their  hereditary  and  plundering  enemies. 
Happily,  however,  the  Patroons  of  the  period, 
and  their  Directors,  or  Governors  of  the  Colony, 
by  a  strict  observance  of  the  laws  of  justice,  and 
by  maintaining  a  cautious  and  guarded  conduct 
in  all  things  towards  their  immediate  neighbors, 


20 

escaped — but  not  without  occasions  of  great  ex- 
citement and  alarm — those  desolating  wars  and 
conflicts  which  were  so  common  elsewhere  among 
the  infant  Colonies  of  the  country. 

While,  however,  they  maintained,  for  the  most 
part,  peaceable  relations  with  the  Indian  Tribes 
around  them,  they  were  almost  constantly  in  col- 
lision, on  one  subject  or  another,  with  the  autho- 
rities at  New  Amsterdam,  and  those  in  Holland. 
The  boundaries  of  rights  and  privileges  between 
them  and  their  feudal  Superiors  were  illy  defined, 
and  subjects  of  disagreement  and  dispute  were 
perpetually  arising.  Here,  at  this  point,  was  the 
chief  mart  of  trade,  at  the  time,  in  the  Province  5 
and  this  trade  fell  naturally  into  the  hands  of  the 
Proprietors  of  the  Colony.  Not  a  little  heart- 
burning and  jealousy,  on  the  part  of  the  Com- 
pany, was  excited  on  this  account,  especially  when 
the  Director  of  the  Colony  was  found  to  have  set 
up  his  claim  to  "  staple-right,"  amounting  to  ja 
demand  of  sovereign  control  over  the  proper 
trade  of  the  Colony  against  all  the  world,  the 
Company  alone  excepted,  and  had  made  formida- 
ble preparations  to  enforce  his  right  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  Island  Fortress,  planted  with  can- 


21 

non,  and  frowning  over  the  channel  and  highway 
of  the  river.    The  Httle  village  of  Beverwyck 
too,  clustering  under  the  guns  of  Fort  Orange — 
the  germ  of  the  City  of  Albany — became  deba- 
table ground.     The  soil  belonged  to  the  Colony, 
and  was  occupied  with  the  proper  colonists  and 
subjects  of  the  Patroon.     The  Company  thought 
fit  to  assert  a  claim  to  as  much  ground  as  would 
be  covered  by  the  sweep  of  their  guns  at  the 
Fort.    This  was  of  course  resisted  on  one  side, 
and  attempted  to  be  enforced  on  the  other  5  and 
so  sharp  did  this  controversy  become,  and  so  im- 
portant was  it  deemed,  that  Gov.  Stuyvesant,  on 
one  occasion,  sent  up  from  Fort  Amsterdam,  an 
armed  expedition,  to  invade  the  disputed  territory, 
and  aid  the  military  force  at  Fort  Orange  in  sup- 
porting the  pretensions  of  the  Company — an  ex- 
pedition wholly  unsuccessful  at  the  time,  and  hap- 
pily too  as  bloodless  as  it  was  bootless.     But  I 
can  not  pursue  this  singular  history  in  this  place. 
In  1664,  the  English  Conquest  of  the  Province 
took  place.     The  Colony  of  Rensselaerwyck  fell 
with  it.    Jeremiah  Van  Rensselaer,  the  second 
son  of  Killian,  was  then  in  possession.     He  died 
in  possession  in  1674.     The  line  of  the  eldest  son 


22 

of  Killian,  the  original  proprietor,  became  ex- 
tinct ;  and  in  1704,  a  Charter  from  Queen  Anne 
confirmed  the  estate  to  Killian,  the  eldest  son  of 
Jeremias  Van  Rensselaer.  The  subject  of  our 
present  Memoir  was  the  third  only  in  the  direct 
line  of  descent,  in  the  order  of  primogeniture, 
through  the  second  son  of  this  Killian  Van  Rens- 
selaer— the  eldest  son  having  died  without  issue. 
The  Estate  came  to  him  by  inheritance,  accord- 
ing to  the  canons  of  descent  established  by  the 
law  of  England.  It  never  passed,  at  any  time, 
from  one  proprietor  to  another  by  will,  nor  was  it 
ever  entailed. 

By  a  Royal  Charter  of  1685,  the  Dutch  Colo- 
ny of  Rensselaer wyck  had  been  converted  and 
created  into  a  regular  Lordship,  or  Manor,  with 
all  the  privileges  and  incidents  belonging  to 
an  English  estate  and  Jurisdiction  of  the  Mano- 
rial kind.  To  the  Lord  of  the  Manor  was  ex- 
pressly given  authority  to  administer  justice 
within  his  domain  in  both  kinds,  in  his  own 
Court-leet  and  Court-baron,  to  be  held  by 
himself  or  by  his  appointed  Steward.  Other 
large  privileges  were  conferred  on  him  5  and 
he  had  the  right,  with  the  freeholders  and  in- 


23 

habitants  of  the  Manor,  to  a  separate  representa- 
tion in  the  Colonial  Assembly.  All  these  rights 
continued  unimpaired  down  to  the  Revolution. 

For  eighty-four  years  immediately  preceding 
the  Revolution,  the  Manor  was  never  without  its 
Representative  in  the  Assembly  of  the  Province — 
always  either  the  Proprietor  himself,  or  some 
member,  or  near  relative,  or  friend  of  the  family. 
Nearly  the  whole  of  this  entire  period  was  filled 
up  with  a  series  of  hot  political  controversies  be- 
tween the  Assemblies  and  the  Royal  Governors. 
I  have  looked  into  the  records  of  these  contests, 
and  I  have  not  found  an  instance  from  the  earliest 
time,  in  which  the  Proprietor  or  Representative 
of  the  Manor  was  not  found  on  the  side  of  popu- 
lar liberty.    The  last  of  the  Representatives  was 
that  stern  patriot  and  Whig,  Gen.  Abraham  Ten 
Broeck.     He  was  the  uncle  of  the  late  Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer,  the  last  of  the  Manorial  Propri- 
etors, and  his  Guardian  in  his  non-age,  and  had  a 
right,  therefore,  to  speak  and  act  in  the  name  of 
his  Ward.     His  official  efforts,  though  often  in  a 
minority  in  the  Assembly,  were  untiring  to  bring 
the  Province  of  New- York  into  a  hearty  co-ope- 
ration with  her  sister  Colonies  in  their  movements 
towards  Revolution. 


24 

This  brief  reference  to  the  connection  of  the 
Manor,  and  of  the  family  whose  possession  and 
estate  it  was,  with  the  poHtical  history  of  the  pe- 
riod, preceding  the  Revolution  5  may  serve  not 
only  to  do  justice  to  the  parties  concerned,  and 
thence  incidentally  to  vindicate,  if  there  were 
need  of  it,  the  conduct  of  the  Dutch  inhabitants 
of  this  Province  with  reference  to  the  progress  of 
free  principles — ^but  also  to  shew  that  great  as  the 
change  certainly  was  in  the  personal  fortunes  and 
prospects  of  the  late  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer, 
between  his  birth  and  his  majority,  yet,  in 
truth,-  that  change  was  neither  sudden  nor  vio- 
lent 5  that  it  was  altogether  easy  and  natural ; 
that  the  way  had  already  been  prepared  5  and 
that,  though  born  as  he  was  to  hereditary  honors 
and  aristocratic  rank,  he  yet,  while  still  a  youth, 
was  carried,  by  the  strong  current  of  the  times, 
over  the  boundary — to  him,  at  the  period,  but  little 
more  than  an  imaginary  line — ^between  two  very 
opposite  political  systems  5  and  found  himself,  at 
his  prime  of  manhood,  and  when  called  to  take  his 
own  part  in  the  active  scenes  of  life,  not  only  a 
contented,  but  a  glad  and  rejoicing  subject  and 
citizen  of  a  free  Republic.     With  the  history  of 


25 

the  past  before  him  5  in  possession  of  an  estate 
which  connected  him  nearly  with  feudal  times 
and  a  feudal  ancestry,  and  which  constituted  him- 
self, in  his  boyhood,  a  Baronial  Proprietor,  instead 
of  what  he  now  was — the  mere  fee-simple  owner 
of  acres,  with  just  such  political  rights  and  privi- 
leges as  belonged  to  his  own  freehold  tenantry, 
and  no  other — it  would  not,  perhaps,  have  been 
very  strange,  if  he  had,  sometimes,  turned  his  re- 
gards backwards,  to  contemplate  the  fancied 
charms  of  a  life,  sweetened  with  the  use  of  in- 
herited power,  and  gilded  with  Baronial  honors. 
Nothing,  however,  I  feel  warranted  in  saying, 
was  ever  farther  from  his  contemplations.  He 
had  no  regrets  for  the  past.  He  was  satisfied 
with  his  own  position  5  and  though  the  Revolu- 
tion, in  giving  his  country  independence  had  stript 
him  of  power  and  personal  advantages,  yet  as  it 
had  raised  a  whole  nation  of  men  to  the  condition 
and  dignity  of  freemen,  and  so  to  a  political  equal- 
ity with  himself,  it  was  an  event  which,  to  a  mind 
attuned  as  his  always  was  to  a  liberal  and  en- 
lightened philanthropy,  was  only  to  be  thought 
of  with  the  strongest  approbation  and  pleasure. 
But  I  come  now  to  recount — which  I  propose 

D 


90 

to  do  in  the  plainest  and  simplest  manner,  as  best 
according  with  the  modesty  of  his  own  preten- 
sions and  character — those  events  in  the  lif  of 
Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  which  constitute  his  per- 
sonal history. 

He  was  born  on  the  first  day  of  November, 
1764,  in  the  city  of  New  York.  His  father  was 
Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  the  Proprietor  of  Rens- 
selaerwyck.  His  mother  was  Catharine,  daughter 
of  Philip  Livingston,  Esquire,  of  the  family  of 
that  name  to  which  belonged  the  Manor  of  Liv- 
ingston. Mr.  Livingston  was  conspicuous  among 
those  lofty  and  disinterested  spirits  brought  out 
by  the  American  Revolution  in  devotion  to  human 
liberty.  He  was  one  of  the  Signers  of  that  un- 
dying instrument — the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. At  the  period  of  the  birth  of  his  grand- 
child, which  took  place  in  his  own  house,  he  was 
a  member  of  the  General  Assembly,  and  at  that 
time,  more  than  ten  years  in  advance  of  the  Revo- 
lution, in  an  Answer  to  the  Speech  of  Lt.  Gov. 
Golden,  which  was  reported  by  him,  he  put  forth 
and  insisted,  in  explicit  terms,  on  that  great  doc- 
trine of  "  taxation  only  with  consent,"  the  denial 


27 

of  which  by  Great  Britain  finally  brought  on  the 
conflict  of  arms. 

The  present  Manor  House  of  Rensselaerwyck 
was  completed  in  1765,  when  the  subject  of  our 
Memoir  was  a  year  old.  It  took  the  place  of  a 
structure,  the  site  of  which  was  near  by,  and 
which  had  answered,  in  its  day,  the  uses  of  a 
fortress,  as  well  as  a  dwelling.  To  this,  the  new 
Manor  House,  his  father  directly  resorted.  His 
occupation  of  it,  however,  was  short.  He  died  in 
1769,  of  a  pulmonary  disease,  leaving  his  son,  his 
eldest  born,  a  few  days  less  than  five  years  old, 
and  transmitting  to  him  a  constitutional  weakness 
of  the  chest,  which  shewed  itself  in  very  alarm- 
ing symptoms  in  his  minority,  but  happily  after- 
wards disappeared.  His  father  left  two  other 
children,  a  son  and  daughter.  The  latter  still 
survives. 

On  the  death  of  his  father,  the  care  of  that 
great  landed  and  feudal  estate,  which  fell  exclu- 
sively to  him,  by  the  rule  of  primogeniture,  was 
committed  to  his  uncle.  Gen.  Ten  Broeck,  by 
whom  it  was  faithfully  managed — as  far  as  the 
disturbed  state  of  the  times  would  allow — during 
the  minority  of  his  Ward.    For  a  while  he  re- 


28 

mained  under  the  control  and  supervision  of  his 
excellent  and  pious  mother — long  enough  no 
doubt  to  receive  those  deep  impressions  of  the 
value  of  religious  faith  and  the  beauty  of  holy 
things,  which  were  finally  wrought  firmly  into 
the  texture  of  his  character. 

His  first  experience  in  school  was  under  the 
labors  of  Mr.  John  Waters,  a  professional  School- 
master, at  a  period  when  a  Schoolmaster  was 
what  he  always  should  be,  a  man  of  consideration. 
It  was  before  the  days  of  Webster  and  printed 
Spelling-books,  and  when  the  letters  and  elements 
were  studied  and  taught  from  a  horn-book.  And 
thus  was  he  initiated  into  these  mysteries.  The 
school-house,  with  its  sharp  roof  and  gable  to  the 
front,  still  holds  its  ground  in  North  Market-street, 
nearly  opposite  the  stuccoed  church  of  the  Colo- 
nic, in  this  city.  And  the  blood  of  John  Waters — 
the  professional  Schoolmaster — is  still  with  us, 
and  running  in  the  veins  of  some  of  our  most 
worthy  and  respectable  citizens. 

But  the  education  of  the  young  Proprietor  was 
to  be  provided  for  in  a  way  which  required  his 
early  removal  from  the  side  and  hearth  of  his 
mother.     This  care  devolved  on  his  grand-father ; 


29 

and  he  was  first  placed  by  Mr.  Livingston  at  a 
school  in  Elizabeth  Town,  in  New  Jersey.  When 
the  stirring  and  troublous  times  of  the  Revolu- 
tion came  on,  Mr.  Livingston  was  driven  with  his 
family  from  the  city  of  New  York,  and  took 
refuge  at  Kingston.  Here,  fortunately,  was  es- 
tablished a  Classical  School,  or  Academy,  which 
attained  no  small  celebrity  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  John  Addison.  Addison  was  a  Scotchman, 
possessing  the  thorough  scholarship  of  an  edu- 
cated man  of  his  nation,  and  without  any  lack  of 
the  shrewdness  and  strong  sense  so  apt  to  be 
found  among  his  countrymen.  He  became  a  man 
of  consideration  in  the  State,  and  filled  the  office 
of  State  Senator  about  the  beginning  of  the  pre- 
sent century.  Mr.  Livingston,  much  absent  from 
home  himself  on  public  affairs,  caused  his  young 
charge  to  be  domesticated  in  his  own  family,  for 
the  convenience  of  his  attendance  on  the  instruc- 
tion of  Addison.  He  acquired  the  elements  of  a 
classical  education  at  the  Kingston  Academy. 
The  late  venerable  Abraham  Van  Vechten — one 
of  the  noblest  specimens  of  humanity  which  it  has 
pleased  God  ever  to  create — ^was  his  fellow-stu- 
dent at  this  school ;  and  here  was  formed  between 


the  two  a  close  and  confidential  intimacy  and 
friendship  which  death  alone  was  able  to  in- 
terrupt. 

But  the  time  soon  came  when  it  was  necessary 
to  supply  the  growing  student  with  more  ample 
advantages.  The  celebrated  Dr.  Witherspoon — 
scholar,  divine,  patriot,  and  statesman — had  ar- 
rived in  this  country  a  few  years  before  the  Revo- 
lution, and,  taking  charge  of  the  College  of  New 
Jersey  at  Princeton  as  President,  had  raised  the 
reputation  of  that  Institution  to  a  very  high  pitch. 
The  Revolution  dispersed  the  students  and  broke 
up  the  College,  and  the  learned  and  ardent  With- 
erspoon, driven  from  Academic  shades,  plunged 
into  the  business  of  the  War.  He,  too,  was  a 
Signer  of  the  Declaration.  He  was  still  in  Con- 
gress in  1779  5  but  he  had  determined  to  retire  at 
the  close  of  that  year,  and  resuscitate  his  beloved 
College.  In  the  summer  of  that  year  Congress 
instituted  a  Commission,  the  members  of  which 
were  to  proceed  northward  to  investigate,  on  the 
spot,  the  troubles  to  which  the  country  was  then 
subjected  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  New  Hamp- 
shire Grants.  The  Doctor  was  in  the  North  on 
this  Commission,  and  on  his  return,  took,  by  ar- 


w^fmi  "  I')"  '^wmmm*<'i'<    ■<■  •  •wwm'^^wi^w'. 


31 

rangement,  young  Van  Rensselaer  with  him,  to 
make  one  of  the  few  who  should  be  gathered,  in 
the  autumn,  under  the  wing  of  the  re-animated 
College.  Gen.  Washington's  Head  Quarter's 
were  then  in  the  Highlands,  at  New  Windsor. 
Stony  Point  had  just  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy,  who  had  also  a  footing  in  New  Jersey. 
The  worthy  Commissioner  and  his  charge,  re- 
ceived from  the  General  the  protection  which  the 
times  required.  Our  student  passed  on  his  way 
to  his  first  essay  in  College  life,  under  a  military 
escort.  He  was  placed  in  the  family  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Samuel  Smith,  the  son-in-law  of  Dr.  Wither- 
spoon,  and  Vice-President  of  the  College,  to 
whom  the  immediate  care  of  conducting  the  in- 
struction of  the  Institution  was  now  committed. 
But  New  Jersey  was  not  yet  safe  from  the  incur- 
sions of  the  enemy ;  Princeton  was  still  too  near 
the  seat  of  war  5  and  the  next  year  it  was  thought 
advisable  to  remove  the  young  Collegian  to  the 
University  at  Cambridge,  then,  as  now,  a  distin- 
guished and  leading  school  of  the  higher  kind  in 
the  United  States.  Here,  in  1782,  in  the  nine- 
teenth year  of  his  age,  with  respectable  attain- 
ments in  the  classical  and  other  learning  of  the 


time,  he  took  his  first  degree  in  letters  as  a  Bach- 
elor of  Arts.  It  may  be  added,  in  this  connec- 
tion, that  in  1825,  he  received  from  Yale  College, 
a  Diploma  conferring  upon  him  the  honorary  de- 
gree of  Doctor  of  Laws. 

The  war  of  the  Revolution  was  ended  in  1782, 
though  peace  was  not  proclaimed  till  the  next 
year.  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  was  now  at  home, 
still  two  years  under  age,  too  late  escaped  from 
the  University  to  put  on  armor  for  his  country, 
without  any  motive  to  apply  himself  to  the  acqui- 
sition of  professional  learning  of  any  sort,  his  es- 
tate yet  under  guardianship  and  properly  cared 
for ;  and  what  was  he  to  do  ?  The  natural  refuge 
of  a  young  man  thus  situated,  and  no  doubt  as 
safe  as  any  which  he  would  be  likely  to  take,  was 
in  matrimony.  He  was  married,  before  he  was 
twenty,  at  Saratoga,  to  Margaret,  the  third 
daughter  of  Gen.  PhiUp  Schuyler ;  and  thus  was 
he  connected,  by  a  near  relationship,  and  one  as 
it  proved,  of  great  confidence  and  affection,  with 
another  of  those  extraordinary  men  whose  names 
so  crowd  and  illumine  the  pages  of  our  Revolu- 
tionary history. 

His  excellent  mother,  a  discreet  and  exemplary 


riqippf4i^,4.iiiii  amcii^w..  wfiwmr  '>\'.mi.p."mw^r> ' 


33 

christian,  had,  in  1775,  united  herself  in  mar- 
riage with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Eilardus  Westerlo,  an 
original  Dutchman,  a  fine  scholar,  an  eminent 
divine,  and,  at  the  time,  and  long  before  and  long 
after,  the  installed  pastor  of  the  Dutch  Church  in 
this  city,  where  he  preached  in  the  Dutch  lan- 
guage for  the  first  fifteen  or  twenty  years  of  his 
ministry.  The  mother  of  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer 
still  resided  with  her  husband  at  the  Manor 
House,  at  the  time  of  his  marriage;  but  the 
ample  Parsonage  of  the  good  Domine,  in  North 
Market  street,  was  then  unoccupied,  and  there  he 
bestowed  his  bride,  to  await  the  period  when,  hav- 
ing attained  his  legal  majority,  he  should  take 
possession  of  his  inheritance.  When  that  time 
came,  the  proper  exchange  of  domiciles  took  place 
between  him  and  his  mother. 

The  occasion  of  his  reaching  the  important 
age  of  twenty-one  was  celebrated  with  much  of 
that  kind  of  rousing  observance,  which,  without 
being  inappropriate,  would  have  fitted  more  per- 
fectly, perhaps,  his  relations  as  a  Landlord,  if  the 
event  had  transpired  ten  years  earlier.  But  as  it 
was,  and  changed  as  the  political  relations  be- 
tween him  and  his  tenants  had  become  within  that 

E 


a4 

time,  they  were  not  to  be  restrained  from  offer- 
ing, on  tliis  event,  the  testimony  of  their  joy,  and 
their  affection  for  his  person,  as  if  he  was  still, 
instead  of  being  simply  a  contracting  party  with 
them  in  regard  to  their  lands,  as  much  their  Pa- 
troon  and  feudal  Superior,  as  his  ancestor  was  of 
their  fathers  in  the  time  of  Petnis  Stuyvesandt. 
The  Tenantry  were  certainly  not  as  numerous, 
by  any  means,  as  they  have  since  become  5  but 
such  as  they  were,  they  poured  in  upon  him  from 
the  extremes  of  the  broad  territory,  nor  did  they 
leave  him  till  they  had  done  ample  justice  to  the 
liberal  cheer  which  he  had  provided  for  their  en- 
tertainment. 

This  event  fairly  disposed  of,  Mr.  Van  Rens- 
selaer found  it  necessary  to  look  somewhat  criti- 
cally after  his  interests  in  the  Manor.  He  was 
in  possession  of  a  very  large  landed  interest,  but 
one  which  could  not  be  managed  without  great 
expense,  and  from  which  he  found  the  returns  not 
only  moderate,  but  small.  The  interests  of  the 
country  too,  as  well  as  his  own,  required  that 
these  lands  should  be  cultivated.  Comparatively 
few  of  them  had  yet  been  converted  into  farms. 
The  Revolution  had  just   closed,  and  left  the 


35 

country  poor.  Speculators  would  buy  lands — 
as  they  always  will — but  farmers,  the  laborious 
tillers  of  the  soil,  were  unable,  or  unwilling,  to  con- 
tract for  the  fee.  By  offering  Leases  in  fee,  or 
for  long  terms,  at  a  very  moderate  rent — some- 
times hardly  more  than  nominal — Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer  succeeded  readily,  in  bringing  a 
large  proportion  of  his  lands,  comprising  the 
greater  part  of  the  present  counties  of  Albany 
and  Rensselaer,  into  cultivation  5  and  thus  secu- 
ring to  himself  a  valuable  and  competent  in- 
come. This  policy  once  adopted  by  him,  was 
never  changed.  Nor  did  he  ever  after  attempt, 
as  he  might  easily  have  done,  greatly  to  increase 
his  current  means  derived  from  this  source. 
The  net  returns  from  his  lands,  never  exceed- 
ed, probably,  two,  if  they  did  one,  per  cent  upon 
them,  considered  as  a  capital  at  a  very  moderate 
valuation.  But  finding  himself  in  the  receipt  of 
a  current  income,  large  enough  for  his  simple 
and  unostentatious  habits,  and  those  of  his  family, 
with  something  liberal  to  spare  for  his  charities, 
he  was  not  only  not  desirous  of  adding  to  his 
wealth  by  enhancing  his  receipts,  but  he  was 
positively  and  strenuously  averse  to  such  a  course. 


36 

He  had  none  of  that  morbid  appetite  for  wealth 
which  grows  ravenous  by  what  it  feeds  on.  And 
this  it  was,  I  have  no  doubt — the  strong  disincli- 
nation to  cumber  himself  with  useless  accumula- 
tions— which  led  him  to  neglect  improvements, 
suggested  often  by  the  interest  of  others,  and  on 
account  of  which,  because  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  feel  and  indulge  that  passion  for  profit 
and  gain  which  consumed  those  around  him,  he 
was  sometimes  subjected  to  heavy  censures. 

Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  received  his  first  mili- 
tary Commission,  as  a  Major  of  Infantry,  in 
1786;  then  at  the  age  of  twenty -two  5  and  he 
was  promoted  to  the  Command  of  a  Regiment 
two  years  afterwards.  In  1801,  Gov.  Jay  direct- 
ed the  Cavalry  of  the  State  to  be  formed  into  a 
separate  Corps,  divided  from  the  Infantry  to  which 
the  Horse  had  before  been  attached.  The  Caval- 
ry formed  a  single  Division,  with  two  Brigades, 
and  the  command  of  the  whole  was  conferred  on 
Mr.  Van  Rensselaer.  This  Commission  of 
Major  General  of  Cavalry  he  bore  to  his 
death. 

In  presenting,  as  nearly  as  may  be  in  the  order 
of  time,  the  events  of  this  good  man's  life,  I  must 


37 

not  omit  to  mention  one  in  this  place,  certainly 
of  no  inconsiderable  importance,  if  only  consider- 
ed as  affecting  our  right  judgment  of  his  charac- 
ter.    It  was  in  the  spring  of  1787,  when  he  was 
short  of  twenty-three  years  of  age,  in  the  vigor 
of  manhood,  just  on  the  threshold  of  mature  life, 
which  sparkled  brightly  before  him,  with  large 
possessions,  and  wealth  enough  to  lay  the  world 
under  contribution  for  whatever  it  can  afford  to 
pamper  appetite  and  passion,  and  supply  the  means 
of  wanton  and  luxurious  indulgence  5  it  was  then, 
and  under  such  circumstances,  that  he  deliberate- 
ly chose,  by  a  formal  profession  of  religious  faith, 
and  a  personal  vow  of  religious  obedience,  ac- 
cording  to  the  doctrines  and  discipline  of  the 
Christian  Church  as  adopted  by  the  Dutch  Re- 
formers, to  pledge  himself  to  a  life  of  temperance, 
simplicity,  truth  and  purity.     How  well  he  kept 
his  vow,  is  known  to  all  who  had  occasion  to  ob- 
serve him  5  and  how  eminently  he  was  blest  in 
keeping  it,  was  seen  in  all  those  quarters,  where, 
I  think,  the  Christian  is  wont  to  look  for  the  pro- 
mise of  the  life  that  now  is — in  the  calm  and 
quiet  of  a  peaceful  existence,  in  domestic  relations 
of  the  most  tender,  harmonious  and  beautiful  cha- 


38 

racier,  and  in  a  resigned,  appropriate  and  happy 
death. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year  1787,  the  Con- 
vention which  sat  at  Philadelphia  to  frame  the 
Federal  Constitution,  terminated  its  labors,  and 
submitted  its  work  to  the  judgment  of  the  peo- 
ple. All  over  the  country  a  desperate  conflict 
arose,  and,  no  doubt,  the  fate  of  the  Republic 
was  suspended  on  the  issue.  Mr.  Van  Rens- 
selaer took  ground  promptly  and  decidedly  in 
favor  of  the  Constitution.  In  the  Spring  of 
1788,  Delegates  to  the  State  Convention,  which 
was  to  pass  sentence  of  condemnation,  or  approval, 
on  the  Constitution,  in  the  name  of  New  York, 
were  to  be  chosen  from  the  county  of  Albany. 
The  anti-federal  party,  strong  throughout  the 
State,  was  particularly  formidable  here.  This 
was  the  residence  of  Yates  and  Lansing,  both 
popular  and  influential,  and  both  of  whom,  hav- 
ing acted  as  Delegates,  had  left  the  Convention 
at  Philadelphia  before  its  labors  were  finished, 
and  published  a  joint  letter  to  the  Governor,  set- 
ting forth  their  reasons  for  refusing  to  put  their 
names  to  the  Constitution.  That  their  counsels, 
and  the  counsels  of  those  with  whom  they  were 


39 

associated  politically,  would  prevail  in  this  quar- 
ter of  the  State,  on  this  important  trial  of  the 
strength  of  parties,  was  hardly  to  be  doubted. 
Yet  were  the  friends  of  the  Constitution  bound  to 
make  the  effort,  and,  in  so  doing,  to  leave  no  part 
of  their  moral  force  out  of  the  controversy.  With 
this  object,  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  was  solicited, 
and  consented,  to  stand  as  a  Candidate  for  the 
Assembly,  at  the  same  election.  The  sway  of 
anti-federal  opinions  and  feelings  at  the  period, 
may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that,  with  all  his 
personal  popularity  and  influence — already  very 
great  in  the  district — he  was  beaten  by  an  over- 
whelming majority.  But  popular  majorities,  even 
where  the  right  of  voting  is  restricted  as  it  then 
was,  are  not  always  remarkable  for  their  stabili- 
ty; and  happy  they  should  not  be — certainly 
when  they  chance  to  be  in  the  wrong. 

The  Constitution  having  been  adopted  after  a 
fearful  struggle,  the  government  was  to  be  or- 
ganized and  put  in  full  operation  under  it.  Ground 
enough  of  diiSerence  in  regard  to  it,  was  still 
left — ^barely  enough — for  parties  to  stand  on  5  but 
the  popular  mind  began  to  sway  strongly  over  to 
the  side  of  the  Constitution.     In  the  Spring  of 


40 

the  very  next  year,  1789,  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer 

was  again  a  candidate  for  the  Assembly,  and  was 
now  carried  into  office  by  a  majority  nearly  as 
great  as  that  by  which  he  had  been  before  defeat- 
ed. And  now,  having  once  got  right,  never  was 
a  constituency  more  steadfast  to  a  faithful  public 
servant.  In  the  course  of  the  next  forty  years 
after,  he  had  occasion  often  to  try  the  strength  of 
their  attachment  to  him  5  and  on  no  occasion  did 
the  county  of  Albany,  whether  comprising  more 
or  less  territory,  and  whether  the  elective  privi- 
lege was  less  or  more  extended,  ever  desert 
him. 

The  first  Session  of  the  Legislature,  to  which 
Mr.  Van  Rennselaer  was  now  elected,  was 
held  in  the  summer,  under  the  Proclamation  of 
the  Governor,  for  the  special  purpose  of  electing, 
for  the  first  time.  Senators  in  Congress.  The 
same  question  which  has  since,  and  more  than 
once,  been  agitated,  respecting  the  mode  of  election, 
divided  the  councils  of  the  State  at  that  period. 
The  federal  party,  and  those  who  desired  to  clothe 
the  Federal  Government  with  all  necessary 
strength  and  stability,  insisted  on  a  mode  of  elec- 
tion which  should  give  the  Senate,  equally  with 


41 

the  popular  branch  of  the  Legislature,  a  separate 
and  independent  action.  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer 
was  of  this  number.  The  anti-federal  party  pre- 
ferred a  mode  of  election,  by  joint  ballot  or  other- 
wise, which  should  subject  Senators  in  Congress 
more  certainly  to  the  popular  will  of  the  State,  as 
it  should  be  currently  expressed  in  the  annual 
elections  to  the  Assembly.  The  question  to  be 
sure  was  one  growing  out  of  the  language  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  and,  therefore,  a  question  of 
constitutional  law  5  but  men  of  different  parties 
at  that  day,  as  well  as  at  this,  were  wont  to  read 
the  Constitution  through  an  atmosphere  of  their 
own,  usually  too  much  clouded  to  allow  the  light 
from  any  objects  to  pass  through  it  in  straight 
lines  5  hence  of  course  they  read  it  differently,  and 
not  unfrequently  both  sides  read  it  wrong.  The 
Legislature  on  this  occasion  separated  without 
settling  on  any  mode  of  electing  Senators^ — except 
for  itself  5  Senators  were  elected  by  the  Joint  Re- 
solution of  the  two  Houses. 

Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  was  now  fairly  embark- 
ed in  political  life.  The  next  spring — 1790 — he 
was  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the  State,  from  the 
Western   Senatorial  District.     When  we  look 


over  this  State,  and  see  what  the  West  now  is, 
we  hardly  know  how  to  credit  the  fact  that,  with- 
in so  few  years,  the  County  of  Albany,  on  the 
North  River,  was  one  of  the  Western  Counties 
of  the  State.  In  the  spring  of  1794,  the  same 
Senator  from  the  same  Western  District  was  re- 
elected. He  was  a  member  of  the  Senate  from 
his  first  election  down  to  1795.  In  the  whole  of 
this  Legislative  period,  he  was  a  faithful,  vigilant, 
highly  influential  and  useful  member.  There  were 
few  standing  Committees  at  that  period ;  but  he 
was  from  the  first,  and  always,  a  member  of  one 
or  more  of  these,  and  always  of  the  most  impor- 
tant. 

In  the  second  year  of  his  senatorial  services, 
1792,  parties  were  thrown  into  a  prodigious  ferment 
by  certain  proceedings  of  the  State  Canvassers,  in 
regard  to  a  portion  of  the  votes  taken  at  the  Gu- 
bernatorial election  of  that  year.  Mr.  Jay  and 
•Mr.  Clinton  had  been  the  opposing  candidates. 
The  popular  voice  had  d<^clared  itself,  by  a  mode- 
rate majority,  in  favor  of  Mr.  Jay  5  but  the  Can- 
vassers found  some  informalities,  and  legal  difli- 
culties,  which  induced  them,  by  a  party  vote,  to 
reject  the  returns  from  three  counties,  by  which 


43 

Mr.  Jay's  majority  was  lost,  and  Mr.  Clinton  was 
declared  elected.  When  the  Legislature  met  in 
the  autumn,  petitions  were  poured  in  upon  it  from 
the  people,  and  a  legislative  investigation  was  had. 
It  appeared  in  testimony,  that  the  rejected  ballots 
had  at  first  been  regularly  deposited  in  appropri- 
ate boxes  in  the  record-room  of  the  Office  of  the 
Secretary  of  State  5  and  that  afterwards,  without 
consent  obtained  at  the  office,  Mr.  Thomas  Til- 
lotson,  a  State  Senator,  and  one  of  the  Canvassers, 
in  the  presence  however  of  several  of  his  fellows, 
took  from  their  place  of  deposit  among  the  ar- 
chives of  the  State,  the  boxes  containing  the  re- 
jected ballots,  and  committed  them  to  the  flames. 
However  pure  the  motives  for  an  act  of  this  sort, 
the  act  itself  was  not  one  which  was  likely  to  meet 
the  approbation  of  the  pure  and  single-minded 
Van  Rensselaer.  His  scornful  reprobation  of 
the  part  enacted  by  Mr.  Tillotson,  uttered  in  no 
equivocal  terms,  brought  him  into  a  personal  col- 
lision with  that  gentleman,  which  was  likely  to  put 
his  life,  or  his  reputation,  or  both,  into  imminent 
hazard.  But  those  who  attempted  to  deal  with 
him  had  quite  mistaken  the  temper  of  the  man. 
Though  one  of  the  mildest  of  men  in  his  ordinary 


demeanor,  he  was  yet  one  of  the  firmest.  He  was 
the  last  person  on  earth  to  be  moved  by  intimi- 
dations. Being  in  the  right,  or  thinking  himself 
so,  he  would  allow  nothing  to  be  wrung  from  him 
which  would  abate,  by  a  feather's  weight,  the  full 
moral  force  of  the  language  he  had  used.  Hap- 
pily, this  admirable  firmness,  with  the  steadiness 
and  quiet  which  distinguished  his  manner,  when 
most  pressed  upon  by  difficulties  and  danger,  sa- 
ved him  from  an  abyss  into  which,  no  doubt,  the 
least  wavering  or  trepidation  would  have  plunged 
him. 

When  the  next  election  for  Governor  approach- 
ed, in  1795,  Mr.  Jay  was  again  placed  in  nomi- 
nation, and,  with  him,  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  was 
nominated  for  Lt.  Governor,  The  circumstan- 
ces under  which  Mr.  Clinton  had  served,  as  Go- 
vernor, during  the  current  term,  were  deemed,  by 
his  party,  such  as  to  render  unwise  his  re-nomina- 
tion at  the  present  time.  Mr.  Yates  and  Mr. 
Floyd  were  the  opposing  candidates.  Mr.  Jay 
and  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  were  elected  by  hand- 
some majorities.  In  1798,  both  were  re-nomina- 
ted, and  both  re-elected,  to  the  same  offices.  On 
this  occasion.  Chancellor   Livingston  was   Mr. 


45 

Jay's  opponent— only  very  lately  his  strong  friend, 
political  as  well  as  personaL  The  Lt.  Governor 
had  no  opposing  candidate.  He  was  named  uni- 
versally throughout  the  State,  by  the  anti-feder- 
ahsts,  on  their  ticket  with  Chancellor  Livingston. 
The  design  was  to  detach  him,  if  possible,  after 
the  example  of  the  Chancellor,  from  the  federal 
party,  and  from  the  support  of  Gov.  Jay.  No 
doubt  it  was  in  his  power  to  have  given  to  the 
Chancellor  and  his  friends  a  complete  triumph. 
It  is  probable  that  no  one  individual  in  the  State, 
at  the  period,  carried  with  him  a  greater  personal 
influence  and  sway.  So  desirable  was  it  deemed 
to  secure  him,  or  at  least  to  make  the  people  be- 
heve  he  was  secured — that  the  Chancellor's  party 
did  not  hesitate  to  employ  the  fact  before  the  elec- 
tors, though  without  the  least  warrant,  as  if  it  had 
been  true.  Of  course,  he  took  the  most  prompt 
and  effectual  measures,  to  disabuse  the  public 
mind  on  a  point  of  so  much  importance. 

I  will  not  hesitate,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  and 
when  dealing  with  matters  of  great  historical  in- 
terest, to  say  what  I  think.  I  think,  then,  that 
New  York  has  never  seen  so  pure  an  administra- 
tion of  its  government,  as  that  which  was  conduct- 


4§ 

ed  by  Mr.  Jay.  I  think  this  is  abeady  the  settled 
verdict  of  an  enlightened  public  sentiment.  He 
could  not  have  had,  during  the  six  years  of  his 
administration,  a  purer,  or  more  worthy  coadju- 
tor than  Lt.  Governor  Van  Rensselaer.  Never 
could  there  have  been,  or  could  there  be,  a  moral 
spectacle  of  higher  beauty,  than  was  seen  in  the 
lofty  and  universal  harmonies  of  thought  and  in- 
tent, of  feelings,  character  and  purposes — the  per- 
fect blending  of  harmonious  colors,  till  nothing 
was  visible  but  the  white  light  of  truth  and  integ- 
rity— when  the  honest  and  true-hearted  Hugue- 
not, and  the  honest  and  true-hearted  Dutchman 
united  to  administer  the  government  of  a  free 
people. 

It  is  not  surprising  then,  when  the  community 
— such  of  them  as  were  attached  to  the  adminis- 
tration and  principles  of  Gov.  Jay— came  to  look 
after  a  fit  person  to  be  his  successor,  that  all  eyes 
fihould  have  rested  on  the  Lt.  Governor.  In 
January,  1801,  a  large  body  of  the  most  respect- 
able freeholders,  from  various  and  distant  parts  of 
the  State,  assembled  at  the  Tontine  Coffee  House 
in  Albany,  and  unanimously  named  Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer  as  their  candidate  for  Governor  at 


47 

the  ensuing  election.  How  he  received  this  mark 
of  public  approbation  and  esteem,  and  with  what 
difficulty  his  acceptance  was  finally  obtained,  ap- 
pears from  the  publications  of  the  time.  His  op- 
ponets,  for  lack  of  better  matter,  took  serious  ex- 
ceptions, if  not  to  him,  to  his  party,  because  he 
had  given  to  the  invitation,  more  than  once,  a  po- 
sitive refusal.  His  nomination  was  enthusiasti- 
cally seconded  in  the  City  of  New  York,  and  in 
public  meetings  held  in  every  quarter  of  the  State. 
His  election  was  advocated  everywhere  by  his 
friends,  on  grounds  which  shewed  that  his  charac- 
ter— young  as  he  was — ^was  already  developed, 
and  was  thoroughly  understood  and  appreciated. 
His  competent  acquaintance  with  the  interests 
and  business  of  the  State ;  his  tried  and  reliable 
judgment  j  his  unconquerable  firmness  5  his  deci- 
sion and  energy  in  emergencies  5  his  purity ;  his 
many  virtues ;  his  retiring  and  domestic  habits  5 
his  humiUty  ;  his  urbane  and  gentle  manners — 
these  were  the  qualities  attributed  to  him  by  his 
friends,  and  in  no  case  denied  by  his  opponents. 
The  rage  of  party  politics  was  becoming  extreme, 
and,  in  their  rancor,  poisoned  the  blood  of  friends 
and  families,  and  seemed  ready,  vulture-like,  to 


48 

tear  the  vitals  of  the  RepubUc.  He  was  the  man 
— so  at  least  his  friends  thought — above  any  other 
man  of  the  period — the  man  of  peace — fitted  to 
soften  the  asperities,  to  reconcile  the  enmities  and 
calm  the  turbulent  agitations  of  the  time.  If  his 
opponents  thought  differently,  they  scarcely  ven- 
tured to  say  so.  They  thought  he  was  rich,  and 
that  those  with  whom  he  had  business  relations 
would  be  likely  to  vote  for  him,  and  hence  they 
thought  the  genuineness  of  his  republican  princi- 
ples was  fairly  to  be  doubted — this  they  thought, 
and  this  they  ventured  to  say.  But  I  should  do 
a  great  wrong  to  the  party  opposed  to  him,  if  I 
should  leave  it  to  be  inferred  that  he  was  defeated 
on  such  grounds — or  that  I  supposed  so.  Mr, 
Clinton,  after  having  been  laid  aside  for  six  years, 
was  now  brought  forward  as  his  opposing  candid- 
ate. Mr.  Clinton  was  popular,  and  there  was 
much  in  his  character  and  history  to  make  him 
deservedly  so.  But  besides  this,  the  RepubUcan 
party — in  which  the  anti-federahsts  were  now 
merged — had  acquired  prodigious  strength  from 
the  serious  apprehensions  which  were  felt  in  the 
country  on*  account  of  some  of  the  measures,  and 
the  apparent  tendencies  of  the  Federal  Govern- 


49 

ment,  in  the  course  of  the  last  four  years.  In  the 
midst  of  the  campaign  in  this  State,  the  election 
of  Mr.  Jefferson  to  the  Presidency  was  announc- 
ed 5  the  fate  of  parties  in  this  State  was  decided, 
and  decided  for  a  long  time  to  come.  Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer  was  defeated,  by  a  majority  of  a  lit- 
tle less  than  four  thousand  votes. 

With  this  defeat,  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer's  offi- 
cial service  in  the  civil  departments  of  the  Gov- 
ernment— with  a  single  exception,  to  which  I  shall 
advert  directly — was  ended  for  several  years.  I 
feel  certain  that,  on  his  oWn  account,  he  was  very 
far  from  regretting  this  discomfiture.  It  left  him, 
as  it  chanced,  the  very  leisure  and  quiet,  which 
he  needed.  It  was  in  the  month  of  March  of  this 
year,  and  while  the  election  canvass  was  going  on 
most  actively  and  virulently,  that  he  was  called 
to  part  with  the  companion  and  wife  of  his  youth. 
How  sensibly  he  was  affected  by  it,  I  have  reason 
to  know,  when  nearly  thirty  years  afterwards,  he 
referred  to  this  event  in  a  very  touching  manner, 
and,  with  many  tears,  poured  his  generous  sym- 
pathy into  the  bosom  of  a  friend  under  similar  be- 
reavement.    By  his  first  marriage,  he  had  three 

6 


50 

children,  one  of  whom  only — his  eldest  son — sur- 
vives. 

In  October,  1801,  a  State  Convention  met  at 
Albany  to  consider  and  revise  the  Constitution,  in 
regard  to  two  specified  subjects.  One  of  these 
subjects  was  the  proper  construction  to  be  given 
to  the  twenty-third  Article  of  the  Constitution, 
which  established  the  old  Council  of  Appointment. 
A  violent  party  controversy  had  arisen  in  Mr. 
Jay's  time,  concerning  the  right  of  nomination. 
It  was  claimed  by  the  Governor,  from  precedent 
and  otherwise,  to  belong  exclusively  to  him  5  the 
members  of  the  Council  challenged  an  equal  right 
to  make  nominations.  The  Convention  was  call- 
ed mainly  to  determine  this  question,  and,  having 
a  strong  party  character,  was  regarded  as  hav- 
ing been  instructed  to  reverse  the  doctrine  and  de- 
cision of  the  Governor.  The  subject  of  our  Memoir 
was  a  member  of  this  body,  and  was  opposed  to 
the  majority.  Col.  Burr  was  the  President,  but 
Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  presided  during  much  the 
greater  part  of  the  deliberations,  as  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  the  Whole. 

In  May,  1802,  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  formed 
an  appropriate,  and  highly  fortunate  and  happy 


51 

matrimonial  union  with  Cornelia,  only  daughter 
of  the  late  William  Patterson,  a  distinguished 
citizen  of  New  Jersey,  and  one  of  the  Judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  This 
excellent  lady,  and  nine  children  of  the  marriage, 
survive  the  husband  and  father.  Delicacy  would 
forbid  my  saying  more  of  the  living  than  concerns 
the  just  memory  of  the  dead.  These  children 
are  all  of  an  age  to  have  developed  already  their 
individual  characters  5  and  to  those  who,  like  my- 
self, believe  that  the  characters  of  children,  as  a 
general  thing,  are  just  what  they  are  educated  to 
be  at  the  domestic  board,  they  afford  the  most 
satisfactory  and  gratifying  proof  that  the  exam- 
ple, instruction  and  influence  of  the  parents  have 
been  worthy  of  all  approbation. 

In  1807,  the  subject  of  our  notice  was  elected 
to  the  Assembly,  and  with  him,  as  a  colleague, 
his  early  and  tried  friend,  Abraham  Van  Vechten. 
They  were  elected  and  served  together  in  the  As- 
sembly for  three  successive  years. 

In  1810,  he  was  called  to  a  new  and  distin- 
guished service.  In  March  of  that  year,  a 
Commission  was  instituted  by  the  Legislature,  for 
exploring  a  route  for  a  Western  Canal  5  and  then 


was  laid  the  foundation  of  that  great  system  of 
Internal  Improvements  by  which  New  York  has 
so  much  signalized  herself.  Seven  persons  com- 
posed the  Commission — though  all,  I  think,  did 
not  act.  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer's  was  the  second 
name  5  the  first  was  that  of  Governeur  Morris ; 
Mr.  Clinton  was  one  of  the  number.  In  the  sum- 
mer of  this  year,  these  gentlemen,  accompanied 
by  a  surveyor,  personally  inspected  and  explored 
the  route  of  a  Canal  from  the  Hudson  to  Erie. 
They  travelled  for  the  most  part  on  horseback ; 
not  always  without  serious  difficulty  and  much 
deprivation,  from  the  uncultivated  state  of  the  coun- 
try 5  sometimes  they  made  the  Canopy  their  cover- 
ing and  shelter  for  the  night.  They  made  their  Re- 
port in  February,  1811.  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer 
was  in  the  Assembly  when  the  project  of  this  Com- 
mission was  first  agitated,  and,  startling  as  the 
idea  was  to  most  men  at  that  day,  he  entered 
warmly  and  heartily  into  the  measure,  and  con- 
tributed materially  to  its  success,  by  his  exertions 
and  influence.  From  the  earliest  period,  he 
was  the  unwavering  and  efficient  friend  of  the 
Erie  Canal. 

The  favorable  Report  made  by   the  Commis- 


53 

fiioners  on  this  occasion,  drawn  by  Mr.  Morris, 
with  consummate  ability,  and  yet  not  without 
great  defects,  gave  an  impulse  to  the  Canal  pro- 
ject which  it  never  wholly  lost,  though  it  shortly 
after  suffered  interruption  by  the  intervention  of 
the  war.  In  April,  1811,  the  Legislature  again 
acted  on  the  project,  by  raising  a  Commission  to 
consider  "  of  all  matters  relating  to  inland  navi- 
gation." Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  was  still  one 
of  the  Commissioners.  It  was  proposed  by  this 
Commission,  to  enlist  Congress,  and  as  far  as  pos- 
sible the  States  individually,  to  contribute  their 
aid  and  support  to  the  work — a  scheme  which, 
most  happily,  completely  failed.  In  March,  1812, 
the  Commissioners  reported,  and  appealed  strong- 
ly and  eloquently  to  the  pride  of  New- York,  to 
construct  the  Canal,  from  her  own  resources,  and 
on  her  own  account.  The  appeal  was  so  far  ef- 
fectual, that  the  Legislature,  in  June,  authorized 
them  to  borrow  five  millions  of  dollars,  on  the 
credit  of  the  State,  for  the  prosecution  of  the  en- 
terprise. The  war  occuring  just  then,  the  project 
slept  for  nearly  four  years. 

The  War  with  Great  Britain  was  declared  in 
June,  1812.    This  occurrence  brought  with  it, 


54 

the  great  crisis  in  the  pubHc  life  of  our  worthy 
and  distinguished  fellow-citizen.  The  country 
was  without  any  adequate  preparation  for  the 
conflict  5  a  state  of  things  which,  from  the  neces- 
sity of  our  political  condition  and  the  frame  of 
our  institutions,  must  always  exist,  I  apprehend, 
whenever,  and  as  often  as  we  may  be  driven  to 
make  our  appeal  to  arms.  Such,  at  any  rate,  was 
the  case  now.  Gen.  Dearborn  had  been  assigned 
to  the  command  of  the  Northern  frontier,  with 
some  undigested  designs  upon  Canada.  He  es- 
tablished his  Head  Quarters  at  Greenbush,  as 
being  on  the  open  and  natural  military  route  to 
the  enemy's  territory,  by  way  of  Lake  Champlain. 
But  there  was  a  great  deficiency  of  troops  for  any 
offensive  operations.  A  regular  army,  of  much 
magnitude,  is  not  to  be  recruited  and  disciplined 
for  service,  in  such  a  country  as  ours,  without 
time.  And  hence  the  necessity  in  all  such  cases 
of  a  resort  to  the  Militia.  The  first  reliance  for 
defence,  at  least,  if  not  for  conquest,  must  be  upon 
citizen  soldiers.  A  requisition  was  made  on  Gov. 
Tompkins,  to  order  into  immediate  service  a  con- 
siderable body  of  New  York  Militia.  The 
patriot  Governor  promptly  obeyed  the  requisition, 


55 

and  selected  Major  General  Stephen  Van  Rens- 
selaer for  the  Command. 

The  public  relations  between  these  two  indi- 
viduals were  peculiar,  and  deserve  to  be  stated. 
They  were  already  regarded  as  rival  candidates 
for  the  Chief  Magistracy  of  the  State  at  the  next 
Spring's   election — the    friends  of   the  General 
having  already  named  him  for  that  office  in  their 
own  circles.     The  Unes  of  party,  too,  were  now 
very  distinctly  drawn,  and   it  was  the  war  that 
was  made  to  divide  them.    The   federalists  were 
charged  by  their  opponents,  not  only  with  being 
hostile  to  the  war  as  having  been  both  prema- 
ture and  unnecessary,  but  also  with  dispositions 
and  designs  averse  to  its  vigorous  or  successful 
prosecution.      Gen.    Van    Rensselaer    was  a 
federalist,  and  about  to  become  the  candidate  of 
the  federal  party  for  the  office  of  Governor,  and 
to  him,  therefore,  without  any  express  declaration 
to  the  contrary,  might,  perhaps,  with  an  equal 
show  of  justice,  be  attributed  the  same  unpatriotic 
and  odious  sentiments  which  were  imputed  to  the 
great  body  of  his  friends.     Without  any   desire, 
or  .attempt,  to  penetrate  the  motives  which  led  to 
the  selection  of  the  General  for  command  under 


56 

such  circumstances,  and  admitting  that  they 
might  have  been  good  and  even  generous,  it  is 
easy  to  see  that,  personally,  the  General  was 
placed  in  a  position  of  extreme  embarrassment 
and  hazard,  and  that  results  of  great  political  im- 
portance might  flow  from  any  determination  he 
might  make.  If  he  should  decline  the  command, 
the  proof  of  a  culpable  defection,  against  both 
him  and  his  party,  would  be  complete.  On  the 
other  hand,  considering  his  own  inexperience  in 
the  trade  and  business  of  war,  the  impracticable 
materials  he  had  to  deal  with,  and  the  very  extra- 
ordinary extent  of  exposed  and  defenceless  terri- 
tory committed  to  his  immediate  mihtary  care 
and  keeping — being  no  less  than  the  entire 
"  Northern  and  Western  frontiers  of  the  State 
between  St.  Regis  and  Pennsylvania"* — consider- 
ing these  things,  and  considering,  too,  how  often 
misfortune  alone,  in  warlike  operations,  though 
accompanied  with  unexceptionable  conduct, 
brings  with  it  the  most  thorough  disgrace,  we 
cannot  help  seeing  that  his  acceptance  of  this 
command  must  subject  him,  personally,  to  a  fiery 

*  General  Orders  of  the  Commander  in  Chief— July  13,  1812. 


57 

ordeal,  from  which  he  might  escape  unharmed, 
and  possibly  with  a  burnished  and  brighter  fame, 
but  where  the  chances  were  fearfully  prevalent 
that  he  would  be  utterly  consumed. 

But  the  noble-minded  man  did  not  for  ain  in- 
stant hesitate,  when  the  question  was  between  a 
probable  sacrifice  of  himself,  and  a  possible  ser- 
vice of  great  value  rendered  to  his  country 
within  the  line  of  his  admitted  duty.  Whatever 
might  be  the  views  of  other  federalists,  his  own 
were  sound  and  thoroughly  patriotic.  It  was  his 
country  that  called  him  to  the  field,  and  that  was 
a  voice  which  he  could  never  disobey.  Nor  was 
he  a  loiterer,  or  a  laggard.  In  an  incredibly 
short  time,  after  receiving  the  order,  he  had  form- 
ed, with  excellent  and  ready  judgment,  his  mili- 
tary family,  thrown  off"  the  citizen  and  put  on  the 
soldier,  and,  having  taken  hasty  leave  of  the  do- 
mestic circle  at  the  Manor  House — from  which  he 
parted  under  circumstances  of  the  most  delicate 
and  tender  interest — he  took  up  his  line  of  march 
for  the  Frontier.  In  ten  days  only  from  the  date 
of  his  orders,  we  find  him  at  Ogdensburgh,  hav- 
ing visited  and  inspected  the  post  at  Sackett's 
Harbor,  on  his  way.     On  the  13th  of  August,  he 

H 


58 

was  in  the  camp  at  Lewiston — just  one  month 
from  the  date  of  the  call  that  had  been  made 
upon  him  5  and  just  two  months  from  that  day — 
on  the  13th  of  October — in  one  of  the  most  gal- 
lant and  brilliant  affairs  of  the  whole  war,  he  car- 
ried his  victorious  arms  into  the  enemy's  territory, 
and  planted  the  American  flag  triumphantly  on 
the  Heights  of  Queenstown.  Unhappily,  it  was 
a  triumph  of  brief  duration.  He  gained  a  com- 
plete and  glorious  victory  5  sufficient,  if  main- 
tained, as  it  might  have  been,  to  have  secured  the 
Peninsula  of  the  Upper  Province  of  Canada  for 
the  winter,  as  a  conquest  to  the  American  arms } 
but  a  victory  lost  as  soon  as  won,  by  the  shame- 
ful cowardice  and  defection  of  his  troops. 

I  cannot,  in  this  place,  enter  into  a  history  of 
this  campaign,  or  of  the  brilliant,  but  finally  dis- 
astrous affair  with  which  it  closed.  The  abundant 
materials  are  already  before  his  countrymen, 
from  which  their  judgment,  and  that  of  posterity, 
will  be  made  up.  There,  I  think,  with  perfect 
security,  may  his  friends  rest  his  claims  as  a  mili- 
tary Commander.  His  merits  in  this  respect  will 
brighten,  as  the  current  of  time  runs  on,  and 
wears  away  the  error,  the  envy  and  the  prejudice 


59 

of  the  day.  It  is  the  soldier's  hard  task  to  con- 
quer difficulties,  as  well  as  enemies.  He  did  it. 
It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  another  instance,  in 
which  an  army  has  been  gathered — created  I  may 
say — and  formed  into  a  well-trained  and  well- 
disciplined  corps,  fit  for  active  and  efficient  ser- 
vice, in  so  brief  a  space  of  time,  with  such 
wretched  materials,  under  such  adverse  and  dis- 
couraging circumstances,  and  where  there  was 
such  an  utter  destitution  of  appropriate  and  ne- 
cessary means.  The  plan,  too,  which  he  project- 
ed, for  bringing  the  brief  campaign  to  a  brilliant 
close,  the  moment  that  he  found  himself  possessed 
of  an  army — ^by  which  he  proposed  to  conquer 
and  possess  himself  of  an  extensive  border  terri- 
tory of  the  enemy  5  cut  off*  the  forces  of  the  ene- 
my in  the  upper  country,  just  flushed  with  vic- 
tory, from  all  communication  with  the  lower 
country  5  wipe  out  the  disgrace  with  which  the 
American  arms  had  been  already  tarnished  in 
that  quarter  5  procure  winter  lodgings  for  his 
soldiers  in  the  comfortable  dwellings  of  a  British 
town,  easily  and  safely  accessible  with  all  kinds 
of  supplies  5  and  be  ready,  in  the  Spring,  to  begin 
a  new  campaign,  with  superior  and  eminent  ad- 


60 

vantages  already  secured — a  plan  perfectly  prac- 
ticable, with  reliable  troops — not  only  justifiable 
at  the  time  he  formed  it,  but  positively  justified  by 
every  thing  that  subsequently  transpired — this 
plan  must  forever  commend  itself  to  the  approval 
and  admiration  of  his  countrymen,  as  having  been 
formed  with  the  discretion,  the  judgment  and  the 
skill  of  a  master  in  the  trade  of  war.  I  allude, 
here,  to  his  enterprize  originally  planned,  by 
which  Fort  George  would  have  been  stormed  by 
the  regular  troops,  while  he  should  have  carried 
the  Heights,  and  by  which,  at  one  blow,  the  con- 
quest of  the  Peninsula  would  have  been  com- 
plete— an  enterprize  which  certainly  failed  only 
for  want  of  co-operation,  where  co-operation  was 
due  by  every  consideration  of  patriotism  and 
honor. 

In  regard  to  the  enterprize,  which  he  actually 
attempted,  and  which  formed  only  a  part  of  the 
original  design,  there  is  little  hazard,  at  this  time 
of  day,  in  saying,  that  it  was  perfectly  feasible, 
well  devised,  and  skillfully  executed.  It  was, 
moreover,  as  an  enterprize,  completely  successful. 
With  a  mere  handful  of  men,  the  Heights  were 
carried  early  in  the  morning,  under  the  direction 


61 

of  his  Aid,  the  brave  Col.  Solomon  Van  Rens- 
selaer 5  and  they  remained  in  his  possession  till 
late  in  the  afternoon  of  that  day.  The  position 
was  one  that  was  easily  defensible,  and  he  had 
within  trumpet-call  men  enough,  twice  or  thrice 
over,  to  have  maintained  it,  and  put  at  defiance 
any  force  with  which  the  enemy  might  or  could 
have  assailed  him.  And  yet,  after  all  this,  he 
must  see  his  victory  turned  into  defeat  and  his 
triumph  into  disaster,  by  the  shameful  refusal  of 
his  yeoman  soldiery,  under  the  plea  of  constitu- 
tional scruples,  to  march  into  the  safe  camp  that 
had  already  been  won  for  them  on  the  other  side 
of  the  lines ! 

The  official  account  of  this  affair,  furnished  by 
the  Commanding  General  the  next  day  after  its 
occurrence,  was  strongly  characteristic  of  the 
man.  It  was  a  simple  and  unvarnished  relation 
of  facts  and  events  5  the  truth  was  plainly  told  5 
but  no  complaint  was  made,  no  reproaches  were 
uttered.  His  own  duty  had  been  done,  and  fear- 
lessly and  faithfully  done  5  and  with  perfect 
equanimity  and  confidence  he  submitted  himself 
to  the  judgment  of  his  Country.     He  expressed 


62 

regrets  on  her  account,  but  he   intimated  none 
whatever  on  his  own. 

In  the  sequel  of  this  severe  and  sanguinary 
conflict,  the  General  found  occasion  for  the  exer- 
cise of  that  sympathizing  and  generous  kindness 
by  which  he  was  so  much  distinguished  5  and  he 
seems  to  have  met  in  the  British  General  Sheaffe, 
a  correspondent  temper.  On  one  side,  General 
Brock  had  fallen ;  on  the  other.  Col.  Van  Rens- 
selaer was  desperately  wounded  5  and  there  were 
other  brave  spirits  on  both  sides,  who  had  shared 
the  fate  of  one  or  the  other  of  these.  A  cessa- 
tion of  all  hostile  demonstrations  was  agreed 
upon.  For  six  days,  the  throat  of  brazen  war 
was  closed,  while,  with  the  tender  of  mutual  ser- 
vices, the  parties  on  either  side  proceeded  to  dis- 
charge the  oflSces  of  humanity  due  to  the  living, 
and  pay  to  the  dead  the  appropriate  tribute  and 
ceremonies  of  respect.  Gen.  Sheaflfe  offered 
every  thing  his  camp  could  afford  to  promote  the 
comfort  of  the  wounded  Col.  Van  Rensselaer. 
Gen.  Van  Rensselaer  informed  his  antagonist 
that  he  should  order  a  salute  to  be  fired  at  his 
camp,  and  also  at  Fort  Nigara,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  funeral  solemnities  of  the  brave  and  la- 


63 

mented  Brock.  "  I  feel  too  strongly,"  said  the 
stern  but  afflicted  Gen.  SheafFe,  "  the  generous 
tribute  which  you  propose  to  pay  to  my  departed 
friend  and  chief,  to  be  able  to  express  the  sense  I 
entertain  of  it.  Noble-minded  as  he  was,  so 
would  he  have  done  himself." 

With  the  campaign  just  referred  to,  closed  the 
services  of  Gen.  Van  Rensselaer  in  the  field. 
The  next  Spring,  1813,  the  Gubernatorial  elec- 
tion was  to  come  on,  when  the  contest  for  power 
in  the  State  between  him  and  Gov.  Tompkins,  or 
rather  between  their  respective  parties,  was  to  be 
decided.  The  General's  friends  shewed  that,  in 
his  brief  military  career,  he  had  lost  none  of  the 
high  consideration  and  confidence  with  which 
they  had  been  used  to  regard  him,  by  placing  him 
promptly,  and  with  great  unanimity,  in  open  nomi- 
nation as  their  candidate  for  the  Chair  of  State ; 
and  when  the  time  came,  they  gave  him  a  hearty 
support.  But  his  party  was  found  to  be,  as  it  had 
long  been,  in  a  minority.  He  was  defeated,  but 
with  a  majority  against  him  of  only  3600,  out  of 
eighty-three  thousand  votes  which  had  been  cast 
in  the  canvass. 

With  no  disquieting  ambition  for  political  dis- 


64 

tinction,  and  a  candidate  for  high  office  at  any  time, 
only  by  a  reluctant  submission  to  the  will  and 
judgment  of  his  friends,  Gen.  Van  Rensselaer 
was  not  a  man  to  feel  any  regrets  on  his  own  ac- 
count, for  defeat  at  an  election  canvass.  In  his 
own  affairs,  in  his  own  family,  and  in  the  secret 
opportunities  which  he  was  always  seeking  for 
the  practice  of  benevolence,  he  had  resources 
enough  for  the  agreeable  and  useful  occupation 
of  all  his  time. 

During  all  the  period  of  the  war,  it  should  be 
remembered,  that  the^  Commission  which  had 
been  instituted  for  the  promotion  of  Internal  Im- 
provement, by  a  great  Canal,  and  of  which  he 
was  a  member,  continued  in  existence.  The  war 
was  no  sooner  ended,  than  measures  were  taken 
to  revive  the  subject,  and  the  interest  which  had 
been  felt  in  it.  A  Memorial,  on  the  subject,  of 
great  ability,  drawn  by  Mr.  Clinton,  was  present- 
ed to  the  Legislature  of  1816,  and  in  March  of 
the  same  year,  the  Commissioners,  with  Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer  at  their  head  and  acting  as  Chair- 
man, presented  their  Report,  setting  forth  the 
difficulties  which  had  been  interposed  to  prevent 
the  execution  of  the  trusts  confided  to  them  four 


65 

years  before,  and  urging  the  Legislature  to  re- 
new the  authority,  to  adopt  immediate  measures 
for  the  prosecution  of  the  enterprize.  In  April, 
1816,  the  law  was  passed  by  the  Legislature, 
which  authorized  and  directed  this  great  work  to 
be  entered  upon ;  and  the  management  and  exe- 
cution of  it  were  committed  to  a  Board  of  Canal 
Commissioners,  of  whom — as  usual — Gen.  Van 
Rensselaer  was  one.  From  that  period  down 
to  his  death,  he  was  a  member  of  that  body,  and 
he  was  the  President  of  the  Board  for  nearly  fif- 
teen years — from  April,  1824,  when  the  name  of 
his  friend,  the  great  Clinton,  was  struck  from  the 
roll  of  Commissioners.  In  the  Spring  of  1816, 
he  was  again,  and  for  the  last  time,  elected  to  the 
Assembly  of  the  State  5  and  his  presence  and  in- 
fluence in  that  body  in  the  Session,  of  1817,  were 
especially  useful  as  affecting  those  immense  in- 
terests— as  yet  but  little  understood,  much  abused 
and  contemned,  and  most  violently  opposed — 
which  belonged  to  the  Canals,  and  the  system  of 
Internal  Improvements,  then  in  the  extremest 
weakness  of  their  infancy. 

I  shall  have  occasion  directly  to  advert  more 
particularly  to  the  important  services  rendered  by 


66 

Gen.  Van  Rensselaer  to  the  cause  of  Learning 
and  Education  j  and  I  will  simply  refer,  there- 
fore, in  this  place,  as  being  in  the  proper  order  of 
time,  to  the  official  connection  which  he  had  with 
our  State  system  of  Public  Instruction.  In 
March,  1819,  he  was  elected  by  the  Legislature 
a  Regent  of  the  State  University,  and  at  the 
time  of  his  death  he  was  the  Chancellor,  having 
been  elevated  to  that  station,  on  the  decease  of 
the  late  venerable  Simeon  De  Witt,  in  1835. 

In  1821,  the  present  Constitution  of  this  State 
was  formed.     Jn  the  progress  of  time,  since  the 
old  Constitution  was  framed,  ideas  were  found  to 
have  advanced  also.     Changes  were  deemed  ne- 
cessary, as  well  to  meet  a  condition  of  things  in 
some  respects  new,  as  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  a 
generation  which  thought  itself — and  should  have 
been,  if  it  was  not — ^wiser  than   that  which  had 
preceded  it.     But  wherever  the  spirit  of  reform 
is  abroad  and  active,  and  speculations  and  theo- 
ries  in  matters   of    government  are   broached 
freely,  and  Councils  are  to  be  held  with  a  view  to 
giving  body  and  effect  to  the  conceptions  of  ar- 
dent minds,  it  is  not  unimportant  to  secure  the 
presence  and  assistance  of  a  few  men  of  conser- 


67 

vative  tempers  and  habits,  in  order  to  make  sure, 
if  possible,  that  the  deep  foundations  of  things 
shall  not  be  wholly  broken  up,  nor  the  moral  ele- 
ments of  society  utterly  dissipated  and  destroyed. 
In  the  Convention  of  1821,  a  few  spirits  of  this 
sort  were  gathered,  and  of  these,  by  no  means  the 
least  valuable  among  them,  was  Stephen  Van 
Rensselaer.  He  brought  with  him  there,  his 
character — one  of  uncommon  purity ;  his  expe- 
rience— not  now  inconsiderable  5  his  steadfastness 
of  principle  5  his  notions  of  men  and  things — de- 
scended from  old  schools,  but  fashioned  and  mod- 
ernized in  the  new  5  his  excellent  strong  sense, 
and  his  judgment  of  almost  intuitive  accuracy 
and  soundness  5  and  with  such  qualifications, 
without  being  accustomed  either  to  write  much 
or  debate  much,  it  would  be  hard  to  say  if  there 
was  another  member  of  the  Convention,  among 
all  the  great  and  good  names  that  belonged  to 
it,  who  was  more  valuable,  or  more  indispen- 
sable than  himself,  if  the  business  of  that  body 
was  to  be  brought  to  a  safe  and  happy  con- 
clusion. 

In  considering  the  doings  of  that  Convention, 
it  is  evident  that  nothing,  in  all  the  various  business 


undertaken  by  it,  was  equal  in  magnitude  of  in- 
terest to  the  single  question  in  regard  to  the  Right 
of  Suffrage.  Here  the  firm  foundations  both  of 
Government  and  of  Freedom  were  to  be  laid; 
while  the  danger  was  that,  at  this  very  point,  if 
not  sufficiently  guarded,  a  flood  might  be  let  in 
to  sweep  both  Government  and  Freedom  away  in 
ruins.  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  was  one  of  the 
Committee  appointed  to  consider  and  report  on 
this  momentous  subject.  He  dissented  from  the 
Report  made  to  the  Convention  by  a  majority  of 
the  Committee,  and  he  submitted  to  the  Conven- 
tion a  Proposition  of  his  own,  as  a  substitute  for  the 
Report,  which  he  accompanied  with  some  remarks, 
briefly  explanatory  of  his  views  and  apprehen- 
sions on  this  great  question. 

It  must  be  remembered,  that  up  to  this  period, 
none  but  freeholders  had  been  allowed  to  vote  for 
the  higher  officers  of  government.  Not  only  had 
a  property  qualification  been  adopted,  but  retain- 
ing the  old  notions,  evidently  of  feudal  origin,  re- 
specting the  superior  value  and  sacredness  of 
landed  possessions,  the  former  Constitution  of 
the  State  had  thrown  the  higher  and  most  im- 
portant branches  of  the   government  exclusively 


69 

into  the  hands  of  the  landed  interest.    Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer  was  the  largest  landed  proprietor  in 
the  State,  and  he  had  inherited  his  interest  in  the 
soil  originally  from  a  feudal  source,  and  held  it  by 
a  feudal  title  5   but  he  was  an  enlightened  and 
patriotic  citizen  of  a  free  State,  and,  as  such,  he 
was  ready  to  take  his  chance  with  others  under 
the  protection  of  a  government  essentially  popu- 
lar and  free.     He  had  no  difficulty  whatever  in 
agreeing  to  the  propriety  of  at  once  abolishing 
the  old  distinctions  between  landed  and  personal 
property  as  affecting  the  higher  rights  of  citizen- 
ship, and  making  the  qualification  of  electors  for 
all  the  officers  of  government  equal  and  uniform. 
And  he  was  equally  ready  to  abandon  the  notion 
of  a  property  quafification  of  any  sort  for  elec- 
tors.     He   agreed  perfectly  to  the  principle — 
which  was  the  one  professedly  adopted  by  his 
colleagues  of  the  Committee — that  those  who 
really  contribute  to  the  support  and  the  defence 
of  the  government,  should  make  the  government. 
So  far  he  was  willing  and  anxious  to  go ;   but 
here  he  would  stop.    He  insisted  upon  guarding 
the  principle  strictly,  by  limiting  the  privilege  to 
such  as  should  seem  to  have  something  of  the 


70 

character  of  fixedness  and  stability  in  their  resi- 
dence, and  their  attachment  to  the  State,  and  he 
was  entirely  unwilling  to  extend  this  privilege — to 
use  his  own  expression — to  "  a  wandering  popula- 
tion, men  who  are  no  where  to  be  found  when  the 
enemy,  or  the  tax-gatherer  comes."  Believing  that, 
in  pushing  a  theory  into  details,  the  Committee 
would  violate  the  maxims  of  a  sound  and  practical 
policy,  by  some  of  their  propositions,  he  felt 
himself  bound  to  dissent  from  the  conclusions 
of  their  Report.  He  conducted  his  opposition, 
before  the  Convention,  as  he  had  done  in  Com- 
mittee, in  his  own  direct  and  manly  way  5  and 
presenting  a  distinct  Amendment  of  his  own,  he 
exerted  himself  to  induce  the  Convention  to  place 
the  Right  of  Suffrage  on  a  ground,  at  once,  accord- 
ing to  his  opinions,  of  great  liberality  and  of  per- 
fect safety.  But  his  opinions  were  not  the  opin- 
ions of  the  majority  of  the  Convention,  and  his 
efforts,  and  the  efforts  of  those  with  whom  he 
was  more  immediately  associated,  though  not 
without  their  strong  and  salutary  influence,  were 
in  the  main  unsuccessful.  After  a  long  and  la- 
borious Session,  the  new  Constitution  was  adopt- 
ed by  the  Convention.    There  had  been  other 


71 

subjects  of  disagreement,  of  great  magnitude  and 
importance,  among  the  members  j  and  Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer,  with  twenty-two  others,  declined  to 
give  their  assent  and  sanction  to  the  Instrument, 
by  putting  their  names  to  it. 

In  1819,  the  Legislature  of  this  State  was  in- 
duced, through  the  exertions  of  a  number  of  dis- 
interested and  patriotic  gentlemen,  among  whom 
was  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer,  to  pass  an  Act  for 
the  encouragement  and  improvement  of  Agricul- 
ture.   A  sum  of  money  was  appropriated,  to  be 
divided  rateably  among  the  several  Counties  of 
the  State  5  County  Societies  were  to  be  formed 
with  the  proper  officers  5   and  the  Presidents  of 
these   Societies,    or    Delegates   instead   of   the 
Presidents  from  such  of  them    as   should  choose 
to  elect  them,  were  to  form  a  Central  Board  of 
Agriculture.    Such  was  the  outline  of  the  pro- 
posed organization.     In  January,  1820,  the  Pre- 
sidents, or   Delegates,  from  twenty-six  County 
Societies,  already  organized,  met  at  the  Capitol 
in  Albany,    and  elected    Stephen  Van  Rens- 
selaer President  of  the  Board.    The  life  of  this 
Board  of  Agriculture  was  made  a  very  brief  one 
by  law,  and  when  the  legal   limit   was   out,  it 


72 

was  suffered  to  expire.  It  lasted  long  enough, 
however,  to  demonstrate  the  inappreciable  value 
of  legislative  aid  and  encouragement  to  the  Agri- 
cultural interest ;  and  it  raised  to  itself  an  endu- 
ring and  noble  monument,  by  the  publication  of 
three  very  valuable  volumes  of  Transactions  and 
Memoires. 

Each  of  the  first  two  volumes  of  the  Board, 
contains,  amongst  other  things,  a  very  curious 
and  remarkable  Paprr.  These  Papers  present  a 
complete  view  of  the  Geological  and  Agricultu- 
ral features  of  the  Counties  of  Albany  and  Rens- 
selaer, as  gathered  from  accurate  and  minute 
surveys,  and  from  actual  and  extensive  analyses. 
They  are  the  Reports  of  distinguished  scientific 
gentlemen,  employed,  exclusively  at  the  expense 
of  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Agriculture, 
to  make  the  examinations  and  surveys,  the  results 
of  which  are  here  embodied.  It  was  believed 
then,  and  it  is  believed  now,  that  these  were  the 
first  attempts  made  in  this  country,  "  to  collect 
and  arrange  Geological  facts,  with  a  direct  view 
to  the  improvement  of  Agriculture."  The  time, 
perhaps,  has  not  even  yet  come,  when  the  in- 
calculable advantages  of  such  a  labor  are  gene- 


rally  appreciated ;  but  I  express  only  my  hum- 
ble and  sober  conviction,  when  I  say,  that  in  thef 
example  of  these  attempts,  and  their  success — 
followed  up  as  they  will  be  in  time,  to  swell  the 
profits  and  increase  the  business  and  the  benefits 
of  Agriculture,  and  withal  to  connect  this  em- 
ployment with  better  knowledge,  and  a  competent 
degree  of  scientific  attainment,  in  the  cultivators 
of  the  soil — he  has  rendered  a  higher  service  to 
his  country,  than  if  he  had  been  the  man  to 
win  twenty  hard-fought  battles  for  her  in  a  just 
and  necessary  war. 

The  laws  for  the  encouragement  of  Agricul- 
ture expired,  as  I  have  said,  by  their  own  limi- 
tation ;  and  all  attempts  to  revive  them  from  that 
day  to  this — strange  that  it  should  be  so — have 
proved  utterly  unavailing.  But  Mr.  Van  Rens- 
selaer, though  without  any  convenient  Society, 
or  Board  of  Agriculture,  under  cover  of  whose 
name  he  might  pursue  his  plans  for  the  benefit  of 
the  State,  had  only  just  now  entered  on  a  se- 
ries of  extraordinary  efforts  and  experiments  for 
the  advancement  of  science,  of  education,  and 
the  public  prosperity,  which  he  afl:erwards  pro- 
secuted   with    equal    perseverance    and   effect. 

K 


74 

After  the  surveys  of  the  counties  of  Albany  and 
Rensselaer  had  been  completed,  under  his  direc- 
tion, presenting,  besides  a  view  of  their  Geologi- 
cal formations,  a  thorough  analysis  of  their  soils, 
in  all  their  principal  varieties — on  a  plan  new 
at  the  time,  and  since  extensively  approved  and 
employed — and  accompanied,  particularly  in  the 
survey  of  Rensselaer  county,  with  a  view  of  the 
proper  Methods  of  Culture  adapted  to  the  various 
soils  5  and  after  he  had  caused  the  Surveys  to  be 
published,  at  his  ovtn  cost,  in  a  separate  and  con- 
venient form,  for  extensive  and  gratuitous  dis- 
tribution 5  he  next  turned  his  attention  to  a 
more  extended  scientific  survey,  to  be  carried 
through  the  entire  length  of  the  State  on  the 
line  of  the  Erie  Canal.  This  was  commen- 
ced and  prosecuted,  under  his  orders,  in  the 
fall  of  1822,  by  Professor  Amos  Eaton,  aided  by 
two  competent  Assistants.  The  next  year,  by 
the  direction  of  his  Patron,  the  work  was  re- 
sumed, and  the  survey  greatly  extended.  The 
truth  seems  to  be,  that,  although  the  surveys  of 
Albany  and  Rensselaer  Counties  were  made,  at 
the  time,  with  an  avowed  and  more  immediate 
reference  to  the  interests  of  Agriculture,  yet  they 


75 

were  not,  even  then,  unconnected  with  a  plan 
which  had  been  formed  for  offering  a  large  and 
generous  contribution  to  the  science  of  Geology. 
This  plan  embraced  a  particular  examination  of 
the  strata  and  formation  of  American  rocks,  by 
the  survey  of  a  transverse  section,  running  across 
the  great  primitive  ranges  of  New  England,  and 
the  transition  and  secondary  ranges  of  Eastern 
and  Western  New- York.  With  the  experience 
obtained  in  the  local  examinations  already  refer- 
red to,  and  a  partial  review  of  the  Erie  Canal 
line,  Professor  Eaton  completed,  in  1823,  his 
grand  Survey.  His  section  extended  from  Bos- 
ton to  Lake  Erie,  a  distance  of  about  five  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles,  stretching  across  nine  de- 
grees of  longitude,  and  embracing  a  belt  about 
fifty  miles  wide.  At  the  same  time.  Prof.  Hitch- 
cock was  employed  to  make  a  similar  survey  of  a 
section  across  New  England,  a  few  miles  North 
of  that  taken  by  Prof  Eaton.  In  1824,  a  Publi- 
cation was  made,  containing  the  results  of  these 
surveys,  with  maps  exhibiting  a  profile  view  of 
the  rocks  in  each  of  the  sections.  It  is  not,  I  be- 
lieve, to  be  doubted,  that  this  work  presents  a 
connected  view  of  mineral  masses,  with  their  na- 


76 

ture  and  order,  taken  from  actual  inspection 
and  survey,  of  greater  extent  than  had  ever 
before  been  offered  to  Geology.  Discoveries 
were  made,  and  a  mass  of  facts  was  gathered, 
which  could  not  fail,  as  they  did  not,  to  arouse 
and  quicken  enquiry  and  investigation,  and  con- 
tribute essentially  and  largely  to  advance  Geologi- 
cal Science.  Attention  was  strongly  attracted, 
both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  to  the  very 
creditable  and  faithful  labors  of  Prof.  Eaton,  pro- 
secuted under  the  direction  of  his  munificent  Pa- 
tron^ and  this  example  it  was,  unquestionably, 
which  has  led,  at  last,  to]^the  adoption  in  several 
of  the  States,  and  this  among  the  number,  of 
plans  for  exploring  their  territories  at  the  pub- 
lic expense,  in  search  of  scientific  facts,  and  of 
the  mineral  riches,  and  other  substances  of  econ- 
omical value,  to  be  found  upon  or  beneath  the 
surface  of  their  respective  portions  of  the 
earth. 

But  the  crowning  effort  of  this  good  man's 
life — whom  we  have  now  followed  on,  in  his 
career,  to  his  three  score  years — remains  to  be 
noticed.  It  was  an  effort  in  behalf  of  the  dearest 
interest  of  his  country,  and  of  mankind  5  it  was 


77 

an  effort  to  advance  the  cause  of  Educati(Hi,  and 
human  improvement.  He  had  satisfied  himself 
that  there  were  great  defects  in  the  ordinary  and 
prevalent  systems  of  Instruction  5  at  any  rate  he 
savi^  that  some  of  the  most  useful  subjects  of  hu- 
man knowledge  were  scarcely  communicated  at 
all,  in  quarters  where  they  seemed  most  needed 
for  the  practical  purposes  of  life  5  and  he  de- 
termined that  the  proper  remedy,  if  possible, 
should  be  applied. 

His  iirst  movement  was  to  employ  Prof.  Eaton, 
with  a  competent  number  of  Assistants,  to 
traverse  the  State,  on  or  near  the  route  of  the  Erie 
Canal,  with  sufficient  apparatus,  specimens  and  the 
like,  and  deliver,  in  all  the  principal  villages 
and  towns  where  an  audience  of  business  men,  or 
others,  could  be  gathered,  familiar  Lectures,  ac- 
companied with  experiments  and  illustrations,  on 
Chemistry,  Natural  Philosophy,  and  some  or  all  of 
the  branches  of  Natural  History.  This  scientific 
and  educational  progress  through  the  State,  weis 
made  in  the  summer  of  1824,  at  the  Patron's  cost  5 
inconsiderable  contributions  only  having  been 
made  in  the  villages  where  Lectures  were  de- 
livered.   The  experiment  was  entirely  successful  5 


78 

a  prodigious  interest  in  behalf  of  natural  science 
had  been  excited  5  and  the  Patron  was  encourag- 
ed to  prosecute  a  plan  of  operations  which  he  had 
meditated  for  a  considerable  time. 

He  had  long  been  accustomed  to  send  the 
schoolmaster  abroad  among  the  poorer  portions 
of  his  numerous  tenantry  5  and  he  had  been  led 
to  observe,  as  th6  result  of  these  experiments — 
having  been  obliged  to  employ  persons,  for  this 
service,  of  very  slender  qualifications,  for  want 
of  better — that  the  improvement  of  the  masters, 
as  a  general  thing,  was  much  more  considerable 
than  that  of  their  pupils.  It  was  from  this  hint, 
that  he  was  led  to  consider,  and  finally  to  digest, 
a  plan  for  a  school,  the  leading  feature  of  which 
should  be,  that  the  learner  should  himself  take 
the  place,  and  perform  the  regular  duties,  of 
teacher  or  instructor,  in  all  the  business  and  ex- 
ercises of  the  school.  Securing,  in  this  way,  as 
he  believed  he  should,  the  most  ready  and  tho- 
rough improvement  of  the  students,  he  proposed 
that  the  chief  business  of  the  School  should  be 
to  furnish  instruction  "in  the  application  of 
Science  to  the  common  purposes  of  life."  He  de- 
clared one  of  his  principal  objects  to  be  "  to  qual- 


7d 

ify  teachers  for  instructing  the  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  Mechanics,  in  the  apphcation  of  Experi- 
mental Chemistry,  Philosophy,  and  Natural  His- 
tory, to  Agriculture,  Domestic  Economy,  and  the 
Arts  and  Manufactures." 

On  the  5th  of  November,  1824,  having  pro- 
vided a  suitable  building  at  Troy,  and  employ- 
ed an  Agent  to  procure  the  necessary  Apparatus 
and  Library,  he  enclosed  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Blatch- 
ford,  a  set  of  Orders  for  the  government  of  the 
School,  and  requested  him  to  proceed  to  its  or- 
ganization, and  act  himself  as  President  of  a 
Board  of  Trustees,  whom  he  named.  He  named, 
at  the  same  time,  a  Senior  and  a  Junior  Profes- 
sor, whom  he  endowed  with  liberal  salaries.  The 
Senior  Professor  was  Mr.  Eaton,  who  had  al- 
ready been  engaged  to  take  the  charge  of  in- 
struction in  the  Institution.  The  School  was 
soon  after  organized,  and  put  into  successful  ope- 
ration. In  1826,  it  was  incorporated,  and  is 
now  known  as  the  Rensselaer  Institute.  Its  suc- 
cess, under  the  care  of  the  veteran  Eaton,  has 
been  complete — but  with  a  very  heavy  and  con- 
tinued outlay  on  the  part  of  its  generous  Patron. 
Instruction  in  the  Sciences  is  wholly  experimen- 


80 

tal  and  demonstrative,  and  it  is  always,  therefore^ 
practical  and  thorough. 

In  1828,  the  Patron,  after  having,  at  his  own 
cost,  established  and  liberally  endowed  this  School, 
and  while  he  was,  then  as  since,  bearing  from  his 
own  purse,  not  less  than  one  half  of  its  current  ex- 
penses, caused  an  invitation  to  be  given  to  each 
County  in  the  State,  to  furnish  a  student,  selected 
by  the  Clerk  of  the  County,  for  gratuitous  in- 
struction at  the  Institute.*  The  invitation  was 
accepted  in  nearly  all  the  Counties,  and  that  large 
number  of  persons,  within  less  than  three  years, 
was  sent  forth  from  the  Institute,  with  a  com- 
plete practical  education,  obtained  without  the 
cost  of  a  dollar  to  them  for  tuition.  Other  in- 
stances of  instruction  there,  wholly  gratuitous, 
have  not  been  wanting. 

The  Patron  first  proposed  to  himself  to  sus- 
tain this  School,  as  an  experiment,  for  three 
years,  with  a  reasonable  expectation  certainly, 
that  at  the  end  of  that  time,  if  successful  at  all, 


*  The  Patron,  however,  imposed  on  these  Students  a  condition — the  bene- 
fits of  which  would  of  coarse  go  to  the  Community— that  they  should  instruct 
in  iheir  own  Counties  for  one  year,  on  the  experimental  and  demonstratire 
method. 


81 

public  attention  would  be  sufficiently  attracted  to- 
wards this  novel  method,  to  enable  him  to  hand  it 
over  to  the  community,  with  a  confident  reliance 
on  the  patronage  of  the  public  to  support  and 
perpetuate  it.  But  all  observation  shews  that  no 
improvements  are  so  slow  in  gaining  adoption 
and  support  at  the  hands  of  the  community,  as 
improvements  in  the  methods  of  Education.  In 
this  case,  almost  of  course,  while  the  Patron  saw 
at  the  end  of  three  years,  that  the  advantages  se- 
cured by  his  methods  and  course  of  instruction 
were  great,  beyond  all  his  original  expectations, 
he  yet  saw  that  the  public  must  continue  to  enjoy 
them,  if  at  all,  for  years  to  come,  chiefly  at  his 
cost.  He  submitted  to  the  sacrifice,  and  thus  has 
this  invaluable  institution  been  continued  for  up- 
wards of  fourteen  years. 

The  course  of  instruction  in  this  Institution 
has  been  considerably  enlarged  since  its  organiza- 
tion, by  the  direction  of  the  Patron.  It  may  be 
described  as  a  School  for  thorough  and  com- 
plete instruction  in  the  circle  of  the  natural 
Sciences,  applicable,  in  any  way,  to  the  econo- 
my or  the  business  of  life,  in  all  its  civil  depart- 
ments— ^not,  however,  including  those  usually  de- 


82 

nominated  professional.  The  peculiarity  in  the 
mode  of  instruction,  originally  introduced,  has 
been  adhered  to ;  and  the  distinguishing  and  emi- 
nent advantage  gained  by  this  peculiarity  of 
method  has  been,  not  only  that  the  students  them- 
selves have  been  thoroughly  taught,  and  are 
ready,  at  all  times,  professionally  or  otherwise, 
to  make  a  practical  and  highly  useful  application 
of  their  knowledge,  for  their  own  benefit  or  the 
benefit  of  others,  but  that,  whether  such  is  their 
occupation  and  business,  or  not,  they  go  out  to 
the  world  as  an  army  of  Teachers,  so  familiar 
with  the  various  subjects  of  their  knowledge,  and 
so  fitted  and  accustomed,  from  long  habit,  to  im- 
part it,  that  they  become  involuntarily  the  school- 
masters and  instructors  of  every  circle  into  which 
they  enter.  They  are  lights  and  luminaries  to 
the  prevalent  darkness  that  may  surround  them, 
gentle  and  mild,  but  radiant  and  steady,  in  what- 
ever orbit  they  may  chance  to  move. 

It  is  impossible  to  compute,  or  perhaps  to  give 
any  rational  conjecture,  about  the  amount  of  good 
which  has  already  been  effected  through  this  mu- 
nificent and  skillfiiUy-devised  charity — much  more 
impossible  is  it  to  compass,  in  thought,  the  bene- 


83 

fits  which  coming  generations  must  reap  from  that 
system  and  plan  of  Education,  of  which  the  ex- 
ample was  first  set,  and  the  eminent  utility  sat- 
isfactorily tested,  in  the  Rensselaer  Institute. 
Schools  have  been  set  up  on  the  Rensselaer 
method,  in  various  and  distant  parts  of  our  coun- 
try 5  and  it  has  been  stated  to  me  as  a  fact,  from 
calculations  actually  made,  that  the  Institute  has 
itself  furnished  to  the  community,  more  experi- 
mental Teachers  and  Professors,  State  Geologists, 
Principal  and  Assistant  Engineers  on  Public 
Works,  and  practical  Chemists  and  Naturalists, 
than  have  been  furnished,  in  the  same  time,  by 
all  the  Colleges  in  the  Union.  If  the  half  of 
this  statement  be  true,  the  result,  in  this  single 
particular,  is  a  proud  one  for  the  memory  of 
the  Patron,  through  whose  almost  unknown  mu- 
nificence it  has  been  effected. 

But  I  pass  to  one  or  two  other  particulars, 
which  must  be  noticed,  before  I  close  the  history  of 
the  personal  career  of  the  subject  of  this  Memoir. 
He  was  connected  with  the  institution  of  Ma- 
sonry, having  been  initiated  as  a  Mason  in  1786, 
when  he  was  twenty-two.  In  this  Association,  as 
elsewhere,  he  was  very  early  placed  in  official 


84 

station.    He  first  held  the  post  of  Junior  War- 
den, as  I  find  it  called;  then  of  Senior  War- 
den ;  and  then  of  Master.     In  1793,  he  declined 
any  further  election  in  the  Master's  Lodge.    In 
1825,  an  imposing  Masonic  ceremony  was  per- 
formed in  this  city,  when  he  was  installed  in  the 
office  of  Grand  Master,  the  highest  office  in  Ma- 
sonry.   The  ceremony  of  installation  was  per- 
formed by  Gov.  Clinton,  who  was  his  predecessor 
in  the  same  high  office.    Both  the  Past  and  the 
Elect  Grand  Master  deUvered  Addresses ;  that  of 
the  former  of  great  length,  and  full  of  power, 
%eauty  and  brilliancy ;  that  of  the  latter,  in   re- 
ply, was  shorter,  full  of  simplicity,  mingled  with 
sterling   good  sense,  and  characterized   by  his 
usual  kindness,  benevolence  and  fraternal  affec- 
tion.   In  1826,  he  was  re-elected  to   the  same 
office ;  but  he  declined  any  further  official  con- 
nection with  Masonry  the  next  year.     It  is  sup 
posed  that  whatever  there  was,  or  is,  in  Masonry, 
worth  knowing,  he  knew  5  and  that  he  had  been 
initiated  into  some  mysteries  connected  with  it, 
which,   since   the  death  of  Baron  Steuben,   by 
whom  they  were  communicated,  were  known  to 
a  very  few  others  only,  in  this  country.     It  is 


85 

well  known,  that  no  abuses  committed  in  the 
name  of  this  Fraternity,  ever  received  the  least 
sanction  from  him  5  and  certainly  no  man  in  our 
community  thought,  or  spoke,  with  more  unaffect- 
ed abhorrence  of  the  outrage,  which,  in  1826, 
was  offered  by  Masons  to  an  Americein  citizen  in 
the  Western  part  of  this  State,  than  he  did.  He 
regarded  this  Institution  as  formed  for  practical 
and  benevolent  uses,  and  whatever  connection  he 
had  with  it,  down  to  the  last,  was  continued  prin- 
cipally, as  a  convenient  means  of  practising  those 
secret  acts  of  charity  and  kindness  in  which  he 
so  much  delighted. 

In  December,  1823,  Gen.  Van  Rensselaer 
took  his  seat,  for  the  first  time,  in  Congress,  as  a 
Representative  from  the  City  and  County  of 
Albany.  He  was  continued  in  his  place  by  re- 
election for  three  successive  terms,  and  retired  on 
the  fourth  of  March,  1829.  During  his  whole 
Congressional  service  of  six  years,  he  held  the 
station  of  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Agri- 
culture. In  March,  1824,  he  made  a  valuable 
Report  to  the  House,  in  answer  to  a  Resolution 
of  enquiry  touching  the  effect  of  the  Tariff 
Laws  on  the  interests  of  Agriculture.    In  Feb- 


86 

ruary,  1825,  the  imposing  ceremony  of  an  elec- 
tion to  the  Presidency  took  place  in  the  House 
of  Representatives.  His  vote  determined  that 
of  the  Delegation  from  this  State  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Adams,  and,  as  it  resulted,  produced  the 
election  of  that  gentlemen  on  the  first  ballot. 
Gen.  Van  Rensselaer  never  mingled  in  the 
conflict  of  debate  5  but  he  was  not,  for  that  rea- 
son, the  less  valuable  or  influential  member. 
His  faithfulness,  his  integrity,  his  eminent  hones- 
ty, his  kindness  of  manner,  his  ready  perception 
of  the  true  and  the  right  in  all  questions  present- 
ed for  the  action  of  the  House,  and  his  freedom 
from  the  prejudices  and  trammels  of  party,  gave 
him  a  standing  and  influence  in  the  House,  far 
beyond  what  ever  belongs,  in  such  a  body,  to  the 
mere  ability,  however  distinguished,  to  conduct  a 
skillful  argument,  or  pronounce  an  eloquent  ha- 
rangue. The  great  moral  sway  which  character 
alone,  commanding  general  admiration  and  re- 
spect, bears  in  a  deliberative  Assembly,  was  never 
more  conspicuous,  than  in  the  case  of  Stephen 
Van  Rensselaer,  in  the  American  House  of 
Representatives. 

Our  review  of  this  eminent  man's  life  is  draw- 


8Y 

ing  to  a  conclusion  5  and  it  will  occur  no  doubt  to 
many,  probably  as  strange,  that  as  yet,  no  dis- 
tinct notice  has  been  taken  of  certain  particu- 
lars, by  which  he  was  more  known  and  distin- 
guished in  the  popular  estimation,  than  by  any 
thing  else — namely — first,  his  connection  with  va- 
rious Societies,  foreign  and  domestic,  particular- 
ly with  those  whose  objects  were  benevolent  5  and, 
finally,  his  private  charities.  These  have  not 
been  forgotten,  but  they  cannot  be  enumerated  in 
this  Discourse.  I  may  mention,  in  general 
terms,  that  he  was  an  honorary  member  of  many 
and  various  learned  Associations,  at  home  and 
abroad  5  some  pursuing  particular  branches  of 
science,  of  arts  or  learning,  and  others  more  com- 
prehensive and  general  in  their  objects.  He  was 
the  President  of  several  local  Societies  designed 
for  charitable  or  religious  uses;  while  of  the 
great  Institutions  of  the  day,  so  general  as  to  be 
designated  American,  and  employed  to  aggregate 
immense  numbers,  and  combine  their  united 
strength  for  the  prosecution  of  great  Christian 
enterprizes,  there  was  scarcely  one,  perhaps  not 
one,  with  which  he  was  not,  or  had  not  been,  con- 


88- 

nected  by  membership,  and  frequently  by  the 
highest,  always  by  high  official  station. 

In  regard  to  his  private  charities,  there  are  two 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  any  attempt  to  particu- 
larize them  5  one  is,  that  they  were  private,  and 
they  are,  therefore,  to  a  great  extent  unknown ; 
and  the  other  is,  that,  so  far  as  known,  they  are 
numberless.  It  would  be  tedious  and  difficult  to 
enumerate  the  cases  alone,  in  which  he  gave  by 
hundreds  and  by  thousands.  Two  of  our  American 
Colleges  received  from  him,  in  one  subscription, 
five  thousand  dollars  each.  It  is  computed,  that  he 
expended,  through  a  single  agent,  in  prosecuting 
scientific  researches,  and  for  the  advancement  of 
his  educational  methods  and  plans,  and  for  gratu- 
itous instruction,  not  less  than  thirty  thousand 
dollars.  And,  taking  the  cause  of  learning  in  its 
various  branches,  the  support  and  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  plans  of  benevolence  and  mercy, 
as  found,  each  of  them,  in  the  hands  of  voluntary 
Associations,  and  dependant  on  individual  muni- 
ficence— taking  these  objects  together,  I  suppose 
it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  he  was  the  largest 
contributor  to  them,  of  pecuniary  means,  during 
his  life  time,  in  the  Union.     In  respect  to  his 


89 

minor  benevolencies,  nobody  can  number  or  com- 
pute them.  They  flowed  from  him  in  streams 
which  were  perpetual — never  dry,  and  never  scan- 
ty. It  was  impossible  they  should  fail,  so  long  as 
objects  could  be  found  to  call  them  forth — and 
these  never  fail.  There  is  not,  probably,  a  pro- 
fession, and  hardly  a  department  of  active  life 
amongst  us,  in  which  some  could  not  be  found — 
few  or  many — ^who  owe  the  advantages  of  their 
position  to  him  5  while  it  is  nearly  certain  that  he 
fed  more  that  were  hungry,  warmed  more  that 
were  cold,  clothed  more  that  were  naked,  cover- 
ed more  shelterless  heads,  dried  up  more  bitter 
tears,  and  comforted  more  despairing  hearts, 
than  any  other  man  living  among  us  in  his 
time. 

But  I  pass  from  these  particulars,  to  the  con- 
clusion of  this  imperfect  notice  and  tribute.  The 
last  year  or  two  of  the  life  of  this  eminent  citizen 
was  marked  by  disease  and  severe  suffering.  For 
several  years,  indeed,  he  had  been  subject  to  at- 
tacks which  indicated  that  a  cruel  malady  was 
fastening  itself  upon  him,  and  that  his  sun  was 
destined  to  set  in  a  troubled  sky.     His  disorder 

M 


90 

finally  showed  itself  fully  about  eighteen  months 
ago,  and  created,  at  the  time,  considerable  alarm, 
lest  its  termination  should  be  speedily  fatal.  Du- 
ring the  whole  of  the  winter  before  the  last,  he 
was  regarded  as  scarcely  ever  free  from  danger. 
Considerable  abatement  took  place  in  the  Spring, 
and  he  was  able  to  leave  home,  for  a  short  time. 
When  winter  returned,  he  was  again  wholly  con- 
fined to  his  house,  and  much  to  his  own  apart- 
ment, enduring  more  than  can  be  told,  with  only 
brief  intervals  of  relief,  till  the  day  of  his  depar- 
ture came— when  his  candle  went  out,  suddenly 
indeed,  but  not  without  circumstances  of  mitiga- 
tion and  mercy.  As  his  faithful  and  honored 
friend  and  biographer,  I  must  not  omit  to  record, 
that  he  died,  as  he  had  lived,  a  Christian ;  ex- 
hibiting a  patience  and  resoluteness  in  his  suflfer- 
ings,  and  a  calmness  and  fearlessness  with  the 
Angel  of  Death  in  his  presence,  which — however 
much  others  might  have  supposed  there  was  of 
reliable  stuff  for  such  scenes  in  his  natural  courage 
and  firmness — he  himself  referred  and  attribu- 
ted wholly  to  the  efficacy  and  sufficiency 
of  his  Christian  faith  and  his  Christian  prin- 
ciples. 


91 

His  own  desire  had  been  frequently  expressed, 
that  when  the  time  came,  his  body  should  be  borna 
to  the  common  Tomb  of  his  Fathers,  with  simple 
ceremonies  only,  and  with  an  entire  absence  of 
ostentatious  parade.  This  injunction  was  obeyed 
by  his  family,  as  far  as  the  public,  and  pubUc 
bodies,  would  consent  it  should  be.  It  was  ar- 
ranged that  the  religious  solemnities  of  his  fune- 
ral should  be  celebrated  at  the  North  Dutch 
Church  in  this  city — his  own  place  of  pubUc 
worship — and  in  the  presence  of  that  fellowship 
of  Christians  belonging  there,  with  which  he  had 
been  connected,  as  a  Member  in  Communion,  for 
more  than  half  a  century.  From  thence  to  the 
family  vault  near  his  late  residence,  a  procession 
was  formed.  The  Body,  in  its  simple  and  una- 
dorned Coffin,  was  borne  on  mens'  shoulders — the 
bearers  frequently  relieving  each  other — the  pall 
supported  by  those  who  had  known  him  long  and 
loved  him  well.  No  hearse  was  permitted  to  re- 
ceive the  burthen.  The  mourners  followed  5  after 
them,  the  Municipal  Authorities  of  the  City  j 
several  public  Societies ;  the  Chief  Magistrate  and 
other  Executive  Officers  of  the  State  5  and  the  Le- 


92 

gislature  in  order ;  and  then  came  citizens  and 
strangers,  falling  in  by  two  and  two,  until  the  pro- 
cession was  extended  to  a  most  unusual  and  im- 
posing length.  All  were  on  foot.  No  carriages 
were  used.  The  Military  were  in  citizens'  dress. 
All  badges  of  office  had  been  laid  aside.  No  plumes 
nodded  5  no  helmets  glistened ;  no  music  murmur- 
ed 5  solemn,  slow,  and  silent,  the  procession  moved 
on,  through  thick  and  thronging,  but  orderly  and 
respectful  ranks,  crowding  the  streets,  and  lining 
the  casements  of  every  dwelling  on  either  side. 
And  thus  were  the  remains  of  the  good  man  carried, 
and  deposited  in  their  resting  place;  and  thus 
were  they  attended.  None  ever  had  a  more  sim- 
ple funeral  j  none  were  ever  followed  by  a  larger 
train  of  sincere  and  sorrowing  mourners. 

Here,  then,  we  part  with  him.  The  man  dies, 
but  his  memory  and  virtues  live.  I  shall  not  at- 
tempt to  give  a  separate  and  extended  sketch  of 
his  character.  It  is  found  in  the  sentiments,  the 
acts,  and  the  practices  of  his  life,  as  already  de- 
tailed. His  mind  was  of  that  order  which  com- 
bines quickly,  and  reaches  conclusions  so  readily, 
and  with  such  intuitive  accuracy,  that  laborious 


93 

investigation,  as  the  need  of  it  is  not  soon  felt, 
finally  becomes  irksome,  and  is  seldom  or  never 
used.  It  reposes  on  itself  with  a  confidence  which 
experience  only  confirms,  while  the  processes  by 
which  it  comes  to  results,  are  seldom  stated  to  it- 
self, and  never  to  others.  His  heart  was  not  un- 
like his  mind,  in  its  impulsive  and  intuitive  habits; 
it  made  him  a  man  of  mercy  and  of  charity,  with- 
out the  necessity  of  any  elaborate  discipline,  or 
any  long  training.  It  was  his  nature  to  be 
kind  and  humane.  He  was  tenderly  attached  to 
his  family,  where  his  affections,  without  making 
an  uncommon  case  of  it,  might  have  rested  and 
terminated  5  yet  he  saw  a  friend  or  a  brother  in 
every  worthy  man  he  met.  His  benevolence  was 
of  that  large  kind  which  loves  an  expansive 
range,  and  is  offended  at  limitations  and  restraints. 
And  his  humanity  was  not  satisfied  with  stopping 
short  of  cruelty,  or  with  relieving  misery,  but 
was  itself  distressed,  if,  by  the  most  unconscious 
act,  pain  were  inflicted  on  another,  or  his  sensibil- 
ity wounded.  He  had  the  tenderness  of  a  very 
woman,  laid  side  by  side  in  his  temperament  with 
a  manly  courage,  and  an  unconcernedness  which 


94 

made  him,  if  occasion  demanded,  laugh  and  mock 
at  fear  or  danger.  There  was  that  in  him,  too, 
which  made  his  spirit  always  self-poised  and  con- 
servative. He  was  temperate  in  all  things ;  in 
his  personal  indulgencies ;  in  his  personal  predi- 
lections or  prejudices;  in  his  party  attachments 
or  aversions;  in  his  new  opinions  or  feelings, 
whenever  he  acquired  them ;  in  his  love  of  the 
world;  and  in  his  religious  faith  and  practice. 
And,  to  sum  up  all,  there  was  in  him,  with  a 
reasonable  facility  for  changing  with  the  times, 
a  steadfastness  of  character  and  purpose — but 
no  unimpressibility — derived,  perhaps,  by  in- 
heritance from  his  nation,  but  so  mingled  in 
him  with  other  elements,  as  to  belong  essen- 
tially and  individually  to  himself.  But  I  for- 
bear. 

The  best  part  of  a  good  man's  life  is  his  ex- 
ample. Him  we  may  meet  no  more ;  but  this 
we  may  meet  at  every  turn.  This  is  immor- 
tal, and  cannot  die.  It  lives  in  memory ;  lives 
in  tradition;  lives  in  history.  It  is  present 
with  us,  and  will  be  present  with  those  who 
come  after  us — to  teach,  to  instruct,  to  influ- 


95 

ence,  and  to  guide.  It  is  a  light  which  never 
goes  out,  and  never  grows  dim.  And,  for  my 
part,  I  know  not  what  we,  or  the  world, 
ought  to  thank  God  for  devoutly,  if  not,  that  a 
good  man  has  lived,  and,  dying,  has  left  us 
the  legacy  of  his  example  and  his  virtues. 


-^ 


APPENDIX. 

AN     HISTORICAL     SKETCH 

OF   THE    COLONY   AND   MANOR 

OF 
EKU>    BSrOHE 

TBE    AliBANX    IN  8  T  I  T  IT  T  B, 

APRIL  25,  1839. 


BY    D.    D.    BARNARD, 

Mmitr  of  the  IntHtiff. 


SKETCH,  &c. 


At  the  period  when  the  settlement  of  the  North 
American  Colonies  was  begun,  the  Dutch  were,  by  far, 
the  most  Commercial  people  in  Europe.  The  Republic 
of  Holland  boasted  of  twenty  thousand  vessels,  and  more 
than  two  hundred  thousand  mariners.  A  bloody  war. 
waged  for  National  Independence,  through  a  long  series 
of  years,  seemed  to  have  had  no  other  effect  than  to  mul- 
tiply their  numbers,  and  turn  rivers  of  wealth  to  flow  into 
the  lap  of  the  Nation.  Liberty,  too,  was  a  great  gainer; 
and  Civilization  marched  forward  by  rapid  strides,  and 
with  manly  vigor,  under  the  lead  of  Commerce.  The 
City  of  Amsterdam  took  the  lead  of  all  others  in  the 
Netherlands.  In  population,  in  wealth,  and  in  political 
power,  she  was  pre-eminent.  The  affairs  of  the  Nation 
were  conducted,  and  wars  were  prosecuted,  expressly  in  a 
manner  to  favor  and  promote  the  operations  of  trade  ;  and 
much  of  the  political  authority,  directly  or  indirectly,  was 


100 

in  the  hands  of  the  Municipalities  where  the  Merchants 
bore  sway. 

In  the  first  years  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  the  Mer- 
chants of  Holland,  like  those  of  every  other  country  in 
Europe,  still  worshipped  with  their  regards  turned  to- 
wards the  East.  In  1602,  the  Dutch  East  India  Compa- 
ny was  established — one  of  those  extraordinary  organi- 
zations of  the  period,  embracing  half  a  world  in  its  ex- 
clusive commercial  grasp,  and  clothed,  at  the  same  time, 
with  unlimited  and  independent  powers  for  conquest  and 
for  government.  It  was  while  engaged  in  the  service  of 
this  Company,  that  Hudson,  after  another  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  find  his  way  to  Southern  Asia,  through  the 
ice-bound  Seas  of  the  North,  ran  down  the  American 
Coast,  and,  finally,  entered  and  explored  our  own  noble 
River,  which  still  bears  his  name.  This  was  in  1609. 
The  Dutch  claimed  no  other  territorial  rights,  in  new 
countries,  as  the  consequence  of  Discovery,  than  such  as 
they  might  secure  by  actual  possession,  taken  in  reasona- 
ble time.  For  several  successive  years  after  the  Discove- 
ry, the  country  on  the  Hudson  was  visited  by  the  trading 
ships  of  various  Merchants  of  Amsterdam.  In  1614, 
the  Slates  General  passed  an  Edict,  which  excluded, 
for  four  years,  from  the  trade  on  this  River,  all  competi- 
tion with  those  under  whom  the  Discovery  had  been 
made,  from  such  time  as  the  latter  might  see  fit  to  enter 
upon  and  monopolize  it.  It  was  under  this  Edict,  that  an 
unincorporated  Trading  Company,  made   up,  probably, 


101 

in  whole  or  in  part,  from  Members  of  the  East  India 
Company,  sent  out  a  trading  adventure,  which  found  a 
position  for  itself,  in  the  fall  of  that  year,  on  the  upper 
part  of  Castle  Island,  the  first  below  this  city,  and  known 
to  us  as  Van  Rensselaer's,  or  the  Patroon's  Island,  and 
where  a  rude  fortification  was  then  erected.* 

This  estabUshment  was  purely  Commercial,  looking  al- 
most solely  to  the  trade  in  peltries,  with  so  much  of  mili- 
tary power  incorporated  with  it,  as  might  serve  for  pro- 
tection, in  its  outcast  lodgement  in  the  deep  of  a  savage 
wilderness.  Its  presence  here,  as  the  pioneer  of  Coloni- 
zation, was  fortunate  and  salutary.  From  the  first,  it 
conciliated  the  favor  and  friendship  of  the  Mohawks,  and 
with  them,  the  warlike  and  conquering  Confederacy  of 
Indians,  known  as  the  Five  Nations  ;  and,  within  three 
years,  its  managers  succeeded  in  concluding  a  solemn 
and  formal  Treaty  of  Friendship  and  Alliance  with  the 
Confederacy,  which  stood  the  parties  concerned,  and  their 
successors,  for  long  years  to  come,  in  much  better  stead, 
than  their  fortification,  "  with  two  brass  pieces,  eleven 
stone  guns,  and  a  dozen  soldiers,"  would  have  been  Wce- 
ly  to  do  under  other  circumstances.  This  Treaty  was 
concluded  at  the  Fort  of  the  Traders,  which  was  situated 

*  Mr.  Bancroft,  in  his  admirable  History  of  the  United  States,  insists  that 
this  trading  settlement  was  not  made  until  1615;  and  he  claims,  in  his 
Notes,  that  this  fact  is  proved  by  the  Albany  Records.  I  think  he  is  mis- 
taken. The  proof  to  which  he  refers  is  too  indefinite  and  uncertain,  to  con- 
trol the  direct  testimony  in  the  case.     1  Banc.  Hist.  272-3. 


102 

on  the  banks  of  the  Norman's  Kill,  a  short  distance  south 
of  the  position  originally  assumed,  and  from  which  they 
had  been  driven  by  the  floods.* 

But  as  yet,  it  will  be  observed,  there  was  no  Dutch 
Colony  here.  There  were  only  the  Commercial  Agents 
of  a  Trading  Association.  Not  a  family,  or  a  female, 
had  yet  emigrated.f  There  had  been  no  formal  appro- 
priation of  any  portion  of  the  soil,  except  for  present 
or  temporary  use  ;  no  purchase  of  land  had  been  made  ; 
and  the  public  Authorities  at  home  had,  as  yet,  advanced 
no  claim  to  the  Territory.  But  the  way  to  Colonization 
was  about  to  be  opened.  With  objects  on  the  part  of 
the  Government,  having  little  to  do,  immediately,  with  the 
settlement  and  reclaiming  of  a  new  and  savage  world,  a 
great  National  Society  was  instituted  by  the  Slates 
General,  under  the  name  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Com- 
pany, which  possessed  the  most  extraordinary  privileges, 
and  was  clothed  with  the  most  extraordinary  powers. 
This  was  in  1621.  It  was  invested  with  the  exclusive 
right  "to  traffic  and  plant  Colonies  on  the  Coast  of 
Africa,  from  the  Tropic  of  Cancer  to  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope ;  and  on  the  Coast  of  America,  from  the  Straits  of 
Magellan  to  the  remotest  North."  It  was  to  be  an  armed 
AssociaCion  from  the  start,  and  especially,  it  was  expect- 


•  Vide  Moulton's  Hist.  N.  Y.  Part.  ii.  p.  346. 

t  The  first  child  of  European  parentage,  born  in  New  Netfaerland,   had  its 
hirth  in  1625.    Moult.  Part.  ii.  p.  371. 


103 

ed  to  set  out  with  a  powerful  Marine.  The  enemies  of 
the  Republic  were  to  be  its  enemies.  And  whenever  it 
should  go  to  war  on  it"*  own  account,  as  it  had  the  pre- 
rogative of  doing,  its  enemies  were  to  be  also  the  ene- 
mies of  the  Republic.  The  States  General  were  to  be 
its  allies.  "With  more  than  half  a  hemisphere  of  land 
and  water  for  its  operations,  it  was  to  carry  its  arms  and 
its  merchandize — to  traffic  and  to  conquer — ^wherever  it 
might  be  found  profitable  and  practicable  to  do  so. 
Wherever  its  standard  might  be  planted,  there  the  abso- 
lute right  of  government  in  the  Company  attached,  with 
only  this  condition,  that  every  thing  must  be  done  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  high  Authorities  from  which  its  power 
was  derived.  The  central  power  of  the  Company  was 
divided,  for  the  more  efficient  exercise,  among  five 
Branches,  established  in  the  different  cities  of  the  Nether- 
lands. Of  these,  that  at  Amsterdam  was  the  chief,  and 
had  charge  of  the  affairs  of  New  Netherland.  ^he  gene- 
ral supervision  and  government  of  the  affairs  of  the  Com- 
pany, however,  was  lodged  in  a  College,  or  Congress,  of 
Nineteen  Delegates.  These  Deputies,  and  the  Managers 
of  the  Five  Chambers,  were  stiled  the  Lord's  Directors, 
and  they  wielded  a  commercial  and  political  authority, 
of  the  first  magnitude.  The  home  of  their  power  was 
to  be  both  on  the  water  and  on  the  land.  They  com- 
menced their  operations  in  1623,  and  at  once  they  swept 
the  Ocean  with  their  fleets,  and  made  their  descent  on  the 
shores  of  two  Continents,  wherever  they  could  spoil  or 


104 

annoy  an  enemy,  or  secure  profits  to  themselves, 
Spain,  the  ancient  enemy  and  oppressor  of  their  country, 
was  made  to  feel  the  weight  of  the  right  arm  of  their 
power ;  and  Piracy,  which,  at  this  juncture,  was  well 
nigh  having  the  common  command  of  the  Ocean,  was 
met  every  where,  and  beaten  into  submission  and  good 
behavior. 

With  objects  like  these  to  occupy  the  attention  of  the 
Directors,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Colonization  of  a 
new  country — ^the  planting  of  a  Christian  population  in  a 
heathen  and  wilderness  land,  with  a  view  to  making  it, 
in  time,  the  abode  of  civilization  and  refinement — should 
not  at  first  have  given  them  much  concern.  They  did  in- 
deed prepare,  at  once,  to  take  possession  of  the  country  on 
the  North  River  ;  for  in  the  very  first  year  of  their  full  or-, 
ganization — in  1623— they  set  up  the  ensigns  of  their 
authority  here  in  two  fortifications.  Fort  New  Amster- 
dam, occupied  a  position  near  the  confluence  of  the  North 
and  East  Rivers ;  and  Fort  Orange  was  planted  near  the 
head  of  navigation,  on  the  alluvial  ground  now  occupied 
by  the  business  part  of  the  City  of  Albany.*  But  even 
yet,  and  for  some  years  after,  these  were  the  mere  trading 
stations  of  the  Company.  Fort  Orange  was  a  walled  and 
armed  Custom-House,  into  which  was  made  to  flow  a 
commerce  in  peltries,  drawn  from  a  country  extending, 


*  The  site  was   that  on  which  stands   the  building  lately  known  as  the 
Fort  Orange  Hotel — formerly  the  mansion  of  the  late  Simeon  De  Witt. 


105 

to  Quebec,  and  bounded  thence  by  the  course  of  the 
waters  inland  to  Niagara  and  the  Lake  above  it ;  while 
New  Amsterdam  was  the  Head  Quarters  of  the 
local  government,  vested  in  an  Upper  and  an  Under  Mer- 
chant, or  Commissary,*  and  the  place  of  rendezvous  for 
the  ships  and  coasters  of  the  Company. 

1  have  entered  into  this  little  detail  of  history,  in  order 
to  shew  the  more  clearly  how,  and  under  what  auspices, 
Colonization  was  in  fact  commenced,  and  where  the 
credit  of  it  ought  to  attach.  De  Heer  Killian  Van  Rens- 
selaer, as  he  was  called,  and  who  became  the  first  Patroon 
of  Rensselaerwick,  was  a  Director  of  the  Dutch  West 
India  Company  at  Amsterdam,  and,  as  described  in  some 
old  Manuscripts,  a  chief  partner.  In  1625,  De  Laet, 
also  a  Director,  and  afterwards  associated  with  Van 
Rensselaer  in  efforts  to  plant  a  Colony,  published  a  book 
on  the  New  World,  which  had  distinctly  for  its  object  to 
recommend  Colonization  to  the  attention  of  his  country- 
men. Attention  was  aroused,  but  no  movement  was  ef- 
fected for  four  years.  In  1629,  a  change  was  produced 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  Central  Government,  so  far  as 
to  allow  the  appointment  of  Nine  Commissioners  at  Am- 
sterdam, for  the  government  of  the  affairs  of  New 
Netherland.  Of  this  Commission,  Van  Rensselaer  was 
one  ;  and  it  is  fair  to  infer,  from  his  position  and  wealth, 
as  well  as  from  subsequent  events,  that  he  had  already 

*  Opper  Koopman  and  Onder  Koopman— or  Commis. 
O 


106 

conceived  strongly  the  idea  and  intention  of  planting  h 
Colonj  in  America,  and  hence  that  he  had  a  principal 
share,  by  his  influence  and  exertions,  in  bringing  about 
that  event  which  first,  and  shortly  after,  led  to  Colo- 
nization in  this  quarter,  under  the  Company.  This  was 
the  adoption,  in  the  same  year — 1629 — by  the  College 
of  XIX,  of  a  liberal  Charter  of  Privileges  for  Patroons 
planting  Colonies  in  New  Netherland.*  Van  Rensselaer 
lost  no  time  in  preparing  to  avail  himself  of  the  terms  of 
this  Charter.  The  very  first  purchase  of  land  made 
by  the  Dutch,  for  a  regular  Colony,  within  this  State, 
so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  was  made  for  Kil- 
lian  Van  Rensselaer.  The  land  lay  near  Fort  Orange, 
but  below  it,  and,  having  its  extent  on  the  River  defined, 
was  to  run  "  two  days  journey  in  landwards ;"  and  the 
purchase  was  made,  on  the  8th  day  of  April,  1630,  of 
four  Indian  owners,  or  Chiefs,  at  Fort  Orange,  in  the 
presence  and  by  the  agency  of  Gov.  Minuit  himself,  then 
holding  the  chief  authority,!  and  with  payments  in  mer- 


•  Vide  Charter  at  length,  in  Moulton's  New  York — Partii.  p.  389. 

t  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  afterwards  Governor,  Was  then  here,  seiff  ollt 
under  tha  orders  of  the  Nine  Commissioners  of  Amsterdam,  probably  with  a 
view  to  fbrther  the  designs  of  some  of  them  in  regard  to  Colonization,  but 
not  yet,  it  would  seem,  in  command,  since  it  is  certain  that  he  bore  no  super- 
sedeas to  Minuit.  Van  Twiller  returned  to  Holland,  and  came  back  again 
in  an  armed  ship,  and  with  some  state,  to  take  possession  of  the  Government 
in  1633. 

Moult.  Hist.  Fart  ii.  p.  419— abo  vide  lb.  p.  400. 


107 

ichaqdize  to  the  full  satisfaction  of  the  native  lords  of  the 
soil.*  Other  purchases,  from  various  owners,  were  soon 
after  made  for  the  same  proprietor — one  the  same  year, 
and  the  last  in  1637 — which,  all  together,  made  up  the 
full  complement  of  Territory,  constituting,  finally,  the 
Colony  of  Rensselaerwyck.  These  acquisitions  were 
confirmed  to  the  purchaser  shortly  after  they  were  seve- 
rally made,  by  the  public  authorities  at  Fort  Am- 
sterdam. 

The  way  was  now  prepared,  and  Van  Rensselaer, 
very  promptly,  after  the  first  purchases  had  been  made 
for  him,  in  1630,  sent  out  his  Colonists  to  occupy  the 
ground.  The  condition  of  the  Charter  to  Patroons  re- 
quired, that  every  Colony  of  a  Patroon,  within  four  years, 
should  consist  of  fifty  persons,  and  none  under  fifteen 
years  of  age,  and  that  one  fourth  part  of  these  should  be 
planted  within  the  first  year.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  this  requisition  was  complied  with  in  Rensselaer- 
wyck. Nor  did  this  satisfy  the  Proprietor.  He  was 
shrewd  and  careful  enough  to  take  advantage  of  a  clause 
in  the  Charter — inserted  there,  as  would  seem  from  subse- 
quent events,  with  scarcely  a  belief  that  the  provision 
could  possibly  be  available  to  any  body — which  offered  to 
any  Patroon  who  would  settle  a  larger  number  of  per- 
sons than  fifty  in  his  Colony,  liberty  to  extend  his  pur- 
chases and  possessions  proportionably  beyond  the  limits 

*  Book  of  Patents  Translated— Sec.  of  State's  Office — p.  6. 


108 

originally  prescribed  in  the  Charter.*  These  prescribed 
limits,  were  a  stretch  of  eight  English  miles  on  a 
Navigable  River,  with  land  running  back  into  the 
country  on  either  side.f  The  Patroon  of  Rensselaer- 
wyck  provided  himself  with  a  Territory  for  his  Colo- 
ny, extending  twenty-four  miles  on  the  River,  and  em- 
bracing the  land  on  either  shore,  and  obliging  himself, 
therefore,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  Charter,  to  begin 
his  little  Empire  in  the  West,  with  a  subject  population 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  adult  souls,  besides  the  usual 
complement  of  children. 

The  Colony  of  Rensselaerwyck,  planted  under  the  di- 
rection and  at  the  sole  expense  of  the  Patroon,  was  the 
first  successful  Colony,  planted  expressly  as  such  by  the 
Dutch,  in  America.  The  first  settlement  of  this  State 
by  a  body  of  emigrants  from  the  Netherlands,  forming  a 
regular  Colonial  establishment,  under  the  provisions  of 
the  Company's  Charter,  was  at  Albany.  But  this  was 
not  the  only  eftbrt  to  promote  and  effect  Colonization  in 


*  The  heavy  expense  of  planting  a  Colony,  at  that  time,  may  be  judged  of, 
in  some  measure  perhaps,  by  a  single  example.  I  have  found  the  record  of 
an  account  presented  by  Gov.  Van  Twiller  to  Sir  Killian  Van  Rensselaer  (aa 
Van  Derkemp  has  it,)  in  August  1638,  for  the  fare  and  transportation  of  two 
families  only.-  in  the  Company's  ships,  the  whole  of  which  account  amounted 
to  £1,413  12.  Currency!  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  there  must  have 
been  something  besides  fare  in  this  account. — 1  Alb.  Records — Trans. 

t  Or  sixteen  miles  on  such  River,  with  land  on  one  side  of  the  River 
only. 


109 

America,  made  by  the  enterprising  and  sagacious  Van 
Rensselaer.  One  of  his  associates  in  the  Direction  of 
the  West  India  Company,  and  a  fellow  Commissioner, 
had  caused  a  tract  to  be  secured  to  him,  by  purchase 
from  the  Indian  Owners,  lying  on  the  Delaware,  then 
within  the  ample  boundaries  of  New  Netherland.  It 
would  seem  that  Godyn,  the  purchaser,  felt  himself  alone 
unequal  to  the  burthen  of  planting  a  Colony  there  ;  and 
an  Association  was  formed  for  the  purpose,  consisting  of 
several  Directors,  of  whom  Killian  Van  Rensselaer  was 
one.  In  the  fall  of  1630,  they  fitted  out  an  expedition, 
under  De  Vries,  a  skilful  conductor,  and  set  down  on  the 
Delaware  a  Colony  of  thirty  souls.  This  Colony  was 
unfortunate.  Within  two  years,  every  soul  had  perished 
by  the  weapons  of  the  Savages,  in  revenge  of  an  unpro- 
voked and  wanton  injury.  But  calamitous  as  the  result 
was  to  the  settlers,  the  attempt  was  not  without  its  value, 
and  it  led  to  important  consequences.  This  was  the  fiist 
settlement  in  Delaware,  and  was  earlier  than  any  in  Penn- 
sylvania or  New  Jersey  ;  and  it  is  due  to  Killian  Van 
Rensselaer  and  his  associates  in  fitting  out  this  Colonizing 
expedition,  that  Delaware  exists,  at  this  day,  as  an  Inde- 
pendent State.* 

•  About  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  the  first  purchase  had  been  made  for 
Van  Rensselaer,  at  Fort  Orange,  a  claim  was  set  up  by  Godyn,  De  Laet  and 
others,  or  their  descendants,  to  a  partnership  interest  in  the  Colony  of  Rens- 
selaerwyck.  The  claim  was  presented  by  Petition,  before  the  Lords  Direc- 
tors of  the  Company  at  Amsterdam,  and,  by  them,  was  referred  to  the  Di- 


110 

Colonization  was  now  fairly  commenced  at  and  around 
Fort  Orange,  on  the  shores  of  the  noble  Hudson  ;  and 
about  1637,  the  Patroon  of  this  Colony  appeared  in  per- 
son to  take  charge  of  his  Estate  and  his  People.  The 
full  history  of  the  Colony  of  Rensselaerwick  would  not 
only  be  interesting,  but  would  contribute,  not  a  little,  to- 
wards pouring  a  full  and  steady  light  on  the  condition 
and  circumstances  of  the  Province  of  New-York,  in  the 
period  of  its  birth  and  early  years.  On  this  occasion, 
however,  I  can  only  recall  its  prominent  features. 

The  United  Provinces  of  Holland,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, never  themselves  undertook  Colonization  any 
Inhere.  They  encouraged  it,  but  they  would  not  put 
their  own  hand  to  the  work ;  and  the  mode  in  which  en- 
couragement was  given  in  the  case  before  us,  shewed 
clearly  the  intention  of  transferring  to  America  the  feudal 
and  aristocratical  institutions  of  the  Father  land.  The 
old  Aristocracy,  however,  content  with  the  power  and 
the  consideration  it  enjoyed  at  home,  was  not  to 
be  transplanted  ;  but  the  New  World  was  to  have 
a  oew  Aristocracy,   formed  out  of  the  best  materials 

rector  General  and  Council  at  New  Amsterdam.  The  demand  was  not  al- 
lowed. It  rested  in  written  Articles  of  Agreement,  which  were  produced^ 
and  bore  date  Oct.  16,  1630.  They  had  reference,  no  doubt,  to  the  Dela- 
ware Colony ;  and  the  attempt  to  make  them  apply  to  the  Colony  of  Rens- 
selaerwyck,  probably  grew,  honestly  enough,  out  of  the  vagueness  of  ideas 
with  which  every  thing  belonging  to  territorial  matters  in  the  New  World  wa« 
>newed  at  this  period. 


Ill 

that  could  be  spared  from  the  old.  The  Prince  would 
not  come  here,  and,  as  a  general  thing,  the  old  no- 
bles would  not  come ;  but  out  of  that  new  and  en- 
terprising class  which  Commerce  had  formed,  and  by  the 
forming  of  which  liberty  had  been  greatly  a  gainer,  a 
feudal  and  landed  Aristocracy  was  to  be  created  for  the 
uses  of  the  rising  world  of  New  Netherland. 

In  the  Charter  of  the  West  India  Company,  it  was 
made  the  duty  of  the  Lords  Directors  to  provide,  in  some 
form,  for  the  settlement,  in  time,  of  the  Countries  of 
which  they  should  possess  themselves;  while  yet  the 
Stations  of  the  Company  every  where  were  to  be  govern- 
ed by  their  own  high  officers,  with  military  and  brief  au- 
thority, and  Commerce,  and  the  spoil  of  the  national  efee- 
my,  were  evidently  the  chief  consideration.  When,  how- 
ever, the  College  of  XIX  came  to  lool^  after  the  subject 
of  Colonization,  they  adoptfed,  very  naturally,  a  system 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  political  complexion  of  the 
Government  at  hortie.  In  the  Charter  of  Privileges  framed 
by  them,  they  held  out  inducements  to  Particular  Persons 
and  Masters,  as  they  were  there  called,  as  well  as  to  Pa- 
troons.  But,  though  Holland  was  a  Republic,  and  fit, 
therefore,  to  be  the  Mother  of  a  Republic  ;  though  by  her 
Federal  Union  of  Provinces  she  was  about  to  offer  to 
America  a  most  valuable  precedent  for  the  guaranty  of 
National  Liberty ;  though  by  her  toleration  and  her  steady 
good  sense,  her  soil  was  now  the  Asylum  of  the  oppres- 
ed  for  religious  opinions,  of  all  nations;  and  though,  on 


112 

the  whole,  Freedom  in  the  Netherlands,  instructed  in 
long  wars  for  Independence,  was  greatly  superior  to  any 
thing  of  the  sort  among  her  neighbors  ;  j'et  popular  liber- 
ty was,  as  yet,  but  little  advanced  in  Holland.  Citizens 
and  artizans  had  begun  to  look  up,  for  personal  wealth 
and  personal  worth  were  beginning  to  be  appreciated ; 
and  Municipal  office,  and  even  the  Aristocratic  station  of 
Burgomaster,  were  not  wholly  beyond  their  line  of  vision. 
But,  then,  the  tillers  of  the  soil — the  boors  of  the  farms 
and  the  fields — knew  little  of  Freedom — ^they  had  hardly 
yet  heard  so  much  as  a  note  from  her  trumpet.  They 
knew  what  protection  was,  and  what  kindness  was ;  but 
they  had  none  of  that  consciousness  of  being  free,  and 
feeling  power,  which  alone  could  prompt  them  to  desire 
a  change  of  place  as  likely  to  lead  to  the  bettering  of 
their  condition  and  prospects.  Voluntary  emigration, 
therefore,  was  not  to  be  expected  from  them.  They  had 
no  religious  persecution  to  fly  from,  as  other  American 
Colonists  had,  and  indeed  few,  if  any,  persecutions  of 
any  sort,  and  they  had  not  begun  yet  to  hanker  after  a 
share  in  politics.  It  is  evident  enough,  therefore,  that 
the  hopes  of  Colonizing  their  possessions  in  America,  rest- 
ed, almost  wholly,  on  the  Patroons,  and  to  them  they 
offered  the  inducements  proper  to  make  them  contem- 
plate with  favor  the  idea  of  changing  their  country.  The 
feudal  Lordships  of  Europe — those  Baronial  possessions 
and  establishments  which  abounded  on  the  Continent  and 
in  England,  and  which  were  not  unknown  in  Holland — 


113 

enjoying  more  or  less  independence,  and  having  more  or 
less  of  the  prerogatives  of  sovereignty — these  offered 
the  example  of  establishments  for  the  North  American 
Province  of  the  Dutch.  The  model  was  proposed,  and 
we  have  seen  that  Killian  Van  Rensselaer  was  prompt  to 
act  upon  the  suggestion. 

Wiiat,  then,  was  the  political  Constitution  of  the  Colo- 
ny of  Rensselaerwyck  ?     And  what  was  the  power  and 
authority  of  the  Lord  of  this  Colony  ?     Doubtless  some 
modification  took  place,  from  the  originals,  to  suit  the 
circumstances  of  its  condition  in  a  distant  and  barbarous 
country.     Holland   had  thrown  off  the  oppressions  of 
bigotry  and  absolutism  ;  and  liberty  there  consisted  in 
preserving  the  Commercial  Aristocracy  of  the  Munici- 
palities, and  the  feudal  immunities  of  the  landed  interest, 
against  any  tendencies  to  Executive  encroachments  on 
the  part  of  their  own  chosen  Stadtholder.     This  was  the 
sort  of  liberty  to  be  planted  here  ;  the  same  general  sys- 
tem was  to  prevail   here,  as  soon  as  time  and  events 
should  ripen  the  country  for  it ;  with  this  difference  of 
course,  that  besides  the  fealty  due  from  the  Cities,  and  the 
Colonies  of  Patroons,  to  the  Central  Authorities  in  the 
Province,  all,  and  the  Province  itself,  were   to  owe  a 
general  allegiance  and  subjection  to  the  States  General 
in  Holland.    Colonies  of  Patroons  were  an  important  fea- 
ture in    this  system;  and  of  these    Colonies,    that  of 
Rensselaerwyck  was  the  most  notable  and  important. 
The  Colony,  of  course,  had  its  foundation  in  the  Char- 
p 


114 

ter  of  Privileges  ;  but  the  full  powers  of  the  Patroon  can 
only  be  understood  by  reference  to  the  analagous  powers 
of  feudal  dignitaries.  The  design  was  to  give  him,  or 
rather  to  leave  him,  as  much  authority  as  would  enable  him 
to  protect  and  govern  his  people,  and  protect  and  defend 
himself  and  his  possessions,  as  well  against  foreign  ag- 
gression, as  against  domestic  revolt.  His  position,  in  the 
midst  of  a  wilderness,  pressed  closely  on  every  side  by 
rude,  warlike  and  powerful  tribes,  was  not  altogether  un- 
like that  of  the  feudal  Lord  in  his  solitary  castle,  hemmed  in 
with  hereditary,  and  revengeful  foes  ;  and  we  have  abun- 
dant evidence  to  shew  that,  in  construing  their  own  au- 
thority, the  Patroons  of  this  Colony,  and  those  who  act- 
ed for  them,  regarded  their  powers  for  military  defences 
and  operations,  as  fully  equal  to  the  exigencies  of  their 
condition  and  times.  At  first,  indeed,  and  in  the  feeble- 
ness of  his  young  Colony,  the  Patroon  borrowed  a  prin- 
cipal means  of  defence  against  violence  from  without, 
from  the  Military  Station  still  held  by  the  West  India 
Company,  in  the  midst  of  his  possessions.  His  first  Tra- 
ding, or  Custom  House,  with  some  other  tenantries,  were 
placed,  for  this  purpose,  under  cover  of  the  stone  guns  and 
other  pieces  which  defended  the  walls  of  Fort  Orange.* 
The  first  residence  of  the  Patroon  himself — which  was 


*  7  Alb.  Records,  p.  197. 


115 

on  the  upper  end  of  the  Patroon's  Island* — was  not  too  far 
off,  perhaps,  to  have  been  within  the  range  of  protection 
afforded  by  the  Company's  Cannon.  But  this  means  of 
defence,  was  not  long,  if  it  ever  was,  exclusively  relied 
upon.  We  find  the  Patroon  himself  possessed  of  the  mu- 
nitions of  war,  and  having  Forts  of  his  own,  planted 
with  cannon.  We  find  him  at  an  early  period  fortifying 
an  Island  in  the  River,  and  claiming  so  much  of  the  re- 
gal power,  which  seems  to  belong  to  the  independent  pos- 
session of  such  warlike  instruments  and  defences,  that 
his  Commander  there,  does  not  hesitate  to  fire  into  a  Dutch 
vessel  which  presumes  to  pass  without  lowering  her 
colors  as  an  act  of  homage  to  Rensselaerstcin.  We 
find  him  receiving,  at  various  times,  large  quantities  of 
powder  and  ball :  his  own  dweUing  is  pallisaded,  forti-* 
fied,  and  manned  ;  and,  finally,  he  is  able  to  lend  three  of 
his  own  cannon  to  the  Company's  Commander  at  Fort 
Orange,  and  three  more  he  causes  to  be  mounted  on  the 
walls  of  the  Church,  and  he  constructs  and  garrisons  an 
independent  Fortress  as  an  outpost  in  the  woods.  Hap- 
pily, this  Colony,  by  a  prudent  and  humane  policy  from 
the  beginning,  escaped  the  calamities  which  befel  so 
many  others  in  the  country,  by  the  hostile  incursions  of 
the  Indians.  They  had  no  known  and  public  enemy 
among  the  Savages  near  them,  except  those  residing  at 

*  This  appears  from  an  ancient  Map  in  the  possession  of  the  family. 


116 

Esopus;    and   no  occasion  arose  for  actual  hostilities. 
These  Esopus  Indians,  however,  were  warlike   and  im- 
placable ;  and  threw  the  Colony  often  times  into  great 
alarm.     They  contrived,  at  one  time,   by  stratagem,  to 
carry  off  several  prisoners,  and  among  them  the  fair 
daughter  of  the  Company's  Chief  Officer  at  Fort  Orange  ; 
and  it  was  not  until  a  few  months  before  the  surrender  of 
tlie  Province  to  the  English,  that  they  succeeded  in  con- 
cluding a  firm  peace  with  these  troublesome   neighbors. 
But  the  right  which  the  Patroons  claimed  to  engage,  for 
the  sake  of  defence,  in  warlike  operations,  if  need  should 
be,  and  the  state  of  warlike  preparation  which  they  found 
it  convenient  to  provide  and  display,  all  together  created, 
at  times — certainly  without  any  sufficient  foundation — a 
feeling  of  distrust  and  uneasiness  on  the  part  of  the  Cen- 
tral Government  of  the  Province,  and  of  the  Authorities 
at  home,  lest  the  Colony  of  Rensselaerwyck  should  some 
day  yield  to  temptation,  and,  setting  up  for  itself,  should 
be  wholly  lost  to  the  parent  country.    The  Chamber  of 
Directors  at  Amsterdam  made  formal  complaints  against 
the  Patroon,  and  the  Directors  of  his  Colony  for  the  time 
being,  amongst  other  things,  that  their  territorial  limits 
had  been  quite  too  much  extended  ;  that  they  had  mani- 
fested a  design  to  monopolize  the  whole  trade  of  the 
North  River — a  design,  indeed,  openly  avowed,  as  they 
alleged,  by  the  Gov.  Wouter  Van  T wilier ;  who,  since 
he  had  been  recalled  from  the  Government  of  the  Pro- 
vince, had  become  the  Guardian  of  the  Patroon  of  the 


117 

time,  in  his  non-age,  and,  though  in  Holland,  was  the 
principal  agent  and  director  of  the  affairs  of  the  Colony — 
that  they  had  actually  set  up  a  claim  to  "  staple-right," 
and  were  prepared  to  enforce  it  by  a  fortification  at 
Rensselaerstein* — and,  finally,  that  the  oath  of  fealty 
and  allegiance,  exacted  of  the  Colonists,  to  the  Patroons, 
savored  of  independence,  and  even  sedition,  inasmuch  as 
no  notice  whatever  was  taken  in  the  oath,  of  their  High 
Mightinesses,  the  States  General,  as  the  ultimate  Supe- 
riors of  the  Colony  and  its  Patroons.  They  deprecated 
the  occurrsnce  of  a  war  between  the  Dutch  and  the 
English  Colonists  in  America — a  serious  difference  hav- 
ing already  set  in — lest,  by  some  means,  in  the  progress 
of  the  the  war,  Rensselaerwyck  should  be  separated  from 
their  dominions. 

In  all  this,  it  is  evident,  I  think,  from  a  cursory  view 
of  the  records  of  the  controversy  almost  constantly  going 
on  between  the  Directors  of  the  Colony  and  those  of  New 
Netherland,  that  the  Corporation  took  council  chiefly 
of  its  fears.  There  was  undoubtedly,  a  disposition  at 
times,  if  not  to  enlarge  the  jurisdiction  and  powers  of  the 
Colony,  at  least  to  use  all  that  belonged  to  it ;  but  the 
truth  really  is,  that  the  Company,  having  early  discovered 

*  "  Staple-Right"  is  defined  to  be  a  privilege  granted  by  the  Sovereign  to 
the  inhabitants  of  a  certain  place  to  compel  Masters  of  Vessels,  trading  along 
their  Coasts,  to  discharge  their  cargo  there  for  sale,  or  on  failure  thereof,  to 
pay  certain  duties. 

Van  der  Linden's  Institutes  of  the  Laws  of  Holland — p.  5S8^i 


118 

that  the  legitimate  advantages  and  importance  of  the 
Colony,  under  the  efficient  direction  and  energy  of  Kil- 
lian  Van  Rensselaer,  were  greater  than  was  quite  con- 
sistent with  all  the  monopoly  and  profits,  all  the  while  in- 
tended to  have  been  secured  to  the  Corporation,  sought 
every  favorable  occasion  afterwards  to  interpose,  and  in* 
terfere  injuriously  with  its  unquestionable  rights  and  in- 
terests. We  shall  see  abundant  proofs  of  this  as  our  nar- 
rative proceeds. 

But  the  power  of  the  Patroons  for  the  defence  of  their 
Colony  by  military  array,  was  not  more  remarkable  than 
that  which  they  possessed  in  regard  to  its  police  and 
government.  The  Charter,  so  often  referred  to,  express- 
ly clothed  them  with  the  High  and  Low  Jurisdiction  of 
the  Feudal  Law.  This  gave  to  the  Patroons  the  origi- 
nal and  absolute  right  to  administer,  in  person,  or  by 
functionaries  of  their  own  appointment,  the  whole  justice 
of  the  Colony,  in  both  branches  of  Jurisprudence.  The 
decision  of  all  causes,  civil  and  criminal,  belonged  in  the 
first  instance  to  them,  in  the  Courts  of  the  Colony.  They 
had  the  right  of  trying  crimes  of  every  kind,  even  the 
highest,  and  those  punishable  by  the  loss  of  life  or  limb, 
as  well  as  those  inferior  and  petty  offences  which,  on 
conviction,  were  followed  by  fine  and  imprisonment. 
Originally,  where  feudal  Jurisprudence  prevailed,  the 
sentences  of  the  Baronial  Courts  were  final,  and  no  ap- 
peal lay  to  any  Superior  Court.  But,  before  the  time  we 
speak  of,  the  efforts  of  Sovereigns  every  where  had  been 


119 

directed  to  the  correction  of  this  dangerous  concession  to 
the  Barons,  and  appeals,  at  least  in  cases  affecting  limb  or 
life,  were  generally  allowed.  It  is  supposed,  thatto  that  ex- 
tent, and  strictly  to  that  extent  only,  could  appeals  be  taken 
to  the  decisions  and  judgments  pronounced  in  the  criminal 
courts  of  the  Patroons.    Indeed,  in  these  cases,  if  any 
such  occurred,  a  review  of  the  proceedings  was  probably 
a  matter  of  course,  before  execution  of  the  sentence 
could  be  had,  and  whether  the  party  implicated  chose  to 
enter  an  appeal  or  not.    In  regard  to  the  lesser  offences 
and  misdemeanors,  the  Jurisdiction  of  the  Patroons  seems 
to  have  been  complete  and  final.    And  so  it  would  have 
been  in  all  civil  suits,  according  to  the  feudal  law  ;  but 
the  Charter  provided  expressly  for  an  appeal  to  the  Com- 
pany's Commander  and  Council  in  New  Netherland, 
from  all  judgments,  by  the  Courts  of  the  Patroons,  for  up- 
wards of  fifty  guilders— a  little  less  than  twenty-one 
Dollars.* 

Such  was  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Patroons  of  this  Colo- 
ny. Justice,  in  both  branches,  was  administered  in  their 
name,  and  by  their  authority.  Thej  appointed  all  the 
officers  of  Justice  in  the  Colony — as  well  as  their  Com- 
mercial officials,  and  their  Military  Commanders.  The 
Sheriff  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Colony — Officers  hav- 
ing more  to  do  with  the  prosecution  of  suits  and  com- 
plaints and  the  trial  of  causes,  than  those  titles  in  our 

•  Just  $20  83  1-2. 


19D 

8}-stem  would  indicate — were  put  in  Commission  by 
them.*  They  did  not,  so  far  as  I  have  discovered,  dele- 
gate the  Judicial  power  which  belonged  to  them,  or  to 
the  Chief  Director  of  the  Colony  for  the  time,  any  far- 
ther than  that  power  was  committed  to  the  Sheriff  and 
Secretary.  In  imitation  of  the  policy  and  practice  of 
the  old  Barons,  of  Princes  of  inferior  rank,  and  even  of 
the  highest  Sovereigns  in  the  early  part  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  ihey  presided  in  their  own  tribunals,  in  cases  of 
importance  or  delicacy,  and  dispensed  the  justice  of  the 
Colony  in  person.  Regularly,  the  due  administration  of 
justice  would  have  required  the  Patroons  to  have  their 
Colonial  prison,  for  the  incarceration  of  such  offenders 
as  should  be  condemned  to  that  punishment.  But  a  sepa- 
rate prison  of  their  own  was  not  indispensable.  A  Jail 
was  constricted  in  Fort  Orange — probably  by  arrange- 
ment between  the  Colony  and  the  Company ;  certain  it 
is,  it  was  used  for  their  mutual  accommodation.  To  it 
the  Sheriff  of  Rensselaerwyck  committed  his  prisoners. 
In  the  Courts  of  the  Colony,  all  causes  and  disputes  be- 
tween the  freeholders  and  inhabitants  of  the  Territory 
were  triable — all  questions  about  titles  to  lands,   about 

*  Shortly  before  the  Surrender  to  the  English,  the  Directors  at  Amsterdam 
set  up  a  claim  to  create  a  Sheriff  for  Rensselaerwick;  and  they  instructed 
Gov.  Stuyvesant — not  to  appoint  a  new  Sheriff — but  to  re-appoint  Sheriff 
Swart,  already  in  Commission  under  the  Fatroon,  and  induce  him  to  consent 
to  receive  a  Commission  from  the  Company ! — Letter  of  25-  Ap.  1659—4 
Alb.  Records  p.  301. 


121 

possessions  or  boundaries,  about  contracts,  and  about 
injuries  to  property,  persons  or  character.  And  here  also, 
the  Patroons  brought  suits,  or  might  have  done  so,  against 
the  tenants  and  freeholders  of  the  Colony,  for  the  quit- 
rents  and  other  demands  due  to  them — a  jurisdiction  and 
right  certainly  calling  for  great  moderation  and  forbear- 
ance on  the  part  of  the  Patroons  and  their  Officials,  to 
prevent  the  abuses  and  oppressions  to  which  so  partial  a 
tribunal  would  be  likely  to  tend.        «• 

The  brief  view  now  taken  of  the  Constitution  and  poli- 
ty of  the  Colony,  may  be  enough  to  give  us  a  general 
impression,  and  not  perhaps  an  unjust  one,  of  the  politi- 
cal condition  of  the  Colonists  under  the  power  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  Patroons.  The  relations  between  the 
two  did  not  certainly  leave  to  the  Colonists  that  freedom, 
and  give  them  that  security,  which  men  enjoy  under  popu- 
lar institutions.  But  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  their 
condition  was  one  in  which  they  suffered  oppression  or 
injustice.  It  is  true,  that  they  were  vassals — not,  how- 
ever, in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  is  often  under- 
stood. They  were  bound,  by  a  solemn  oath,  to  bear  true 
faith  and  fealty  to  the  Lord  and  Governor  of  the  Colony. 
They  were  his  immediate  subjects,  and  bound  to  a  lawful 
obedience.  But  their  Superior  was  himself  a  vassal — 
to  those  high  Authorities  from  whom  he  derived  his  right 
and  his  power ;  he  was  himself  a  subject,  and  his  people 
were  not  only  his  subjects,  but  they  were  the  subjects 
also  of  the  same  Sovereign  to  whom  his  own  allegiance 


122 

was  due.  There  appears  to  have  been,  from  the  papers 
I  have  examined,  and  I  have  no  doubt  there  was,  as  a 
general  thing,  a  relation  of  kindness  and  mutual  attach- 
ment subsisting  between  them  and  him.  He  was  what 
his  title  indicated  he  would  be,  their  Patron — their  pro- 
tector and  friend.  He  promulgated  to  them  just  laws 
enough,  and  exercised  just  authority  enough,  to  compel 
them,  wherever  they  might  be  otherwise  disposed,  to  be 
orderly  and  peaceable,  and  observe  the  obligations  of 
honesty  and  right,  towards  him,  and  towards  one  an- 
other. For  the  rest,  his  government  was  paternal.  It 
was  exercised  in  composing  disputes  and  differences,  io 
bestowing  friendly  counsel,  and,  through  the  natural  in- 
fluence of  his  position  and  character,  reconciling  enmi- 
ties and  healing  feuds.  The  care  of  their  defence  and 
protection,  in  their  exposed  situation,  rested  with  him. 
He  had  the  means  of  such  defence,  which  they  had  not ; 
and,  having  both  their  gratitude  and  their  confidence, 
they  were  proud  to  be  his  soldiers,  as  well  as  his  sub- 
jects, and  were  ready,  at  any  time,  to  fight  with  him,  or 
to  fight  for  him,  as  he  should  direct  and  command.  They 
enjoyed,  it  must  be  remembered,  feudal  liberty — a  liber- 
ty by  no  means  to  be  despised,  at  that  time  of  day.  It 
was  one  of  the  best  forms  of  liberty,  which,  at  that  day, 
the  world  had  to  offer.  The  feudal  system  came  origi- 
nally, as  a  relief  to  men  from  the  burthens  and  oppres- 
sions of  worse  systems  which  it  displaced  ;  and  though 
it  was  itself  made  subsequently  the  instrument  of  grind- 


123 

ing  exactions,  and  of  every  species  of  petty  tyranny,  m 
that  the  people  were  glad  to  fly  to  their  Sovereigns,  and 
to  absolute  governments,  for  protection,  yet  before  the 
period  we  speak  of,  the  system,  what  remained  of  it,  and 
in  its  modified  forms,  had  become  one  which  favored 
freedom,  and  was  not  without  its  guaranties  for  security 
and  personal  independence.  There  was  a  single  feature 
in  it  of  no  inconsiderable  importance  and  value,  and 
which  belonged  to  it  as  applied  to  this  Colony  as  well  as 
elsewhere — whether  there  was  ever  occasion  to  use  it  or 
not.  The  freeholders  of  the  Colony — as  many  of  those 
holding  lands  from  the  Patroons  were — were  as  much, 
and  as  essentially,  members  of  the  Criminal  Courts  of  the 
Colony,  as  was  the  Patroon  himself,  whenever  tri- 
als were  to  be  held  for  any  of  the  higher  class  of 
offences.  They  were  themselves  the  triers  of  the  offend- 
ers, and  no  man  could  be  convicted  for  a  capital,  or 
high  crime,  without  the  verdict  of  a  competent  number 
of  his  peers. 

I  have  not  found,  in  my  researches,  nor  do  I  believe, 
that  there  was  any  thing  seriously  to  complain  of  in  the 
conduct  of  the  administration  of  the  Colony — especially 
while  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Patroons  themselves,  or 
of  any  of  the  family.  During  the  non-age  of  a  Patroon, 
which,  by  the  law  of  Holland,  extended,  I  think,  to 
twenty-fi^e  years,  I  find  the  Colony  in  possession  and  un- 
der the  Command  and  Directorship  of  one  Brandt  Van 
Slecktenhoorst,  who  certainly  did  seem  disposed,  in  some 


124 

things,  to  carry  matters  with  a  high  hand.  He  is  accused 
by  the  Director  General  and  Council  at  Manhattan,  of 
making  his  judicial  decisions  absolute  and  final  in  all 
cases,  and  compelling  the  inhabitants  to  forego  the  use  of 
their  undoubted  right  of  appeal.  I  have  not  found,  how- 
ever, any  evidence  that  any  such  complaint  ever  emana- 
ted from  the  inhabitants  themselves ;  and  it  is  only  sheer 
justice  to  the  memory  of  the  worthy  Commander,  to  say 
that  in  my  judgment,  his  accusers  in  this  case,  ought  not 
to  be  his  judges.  His  zeal,  no  doubt  at  times  intempe- 
rate, for  the  honor  and  interests  of  his  Orphan  Patroon — 
as  he  repeatedly  styles  him  —and  for  the  Colony,  and  his 
resolute  determination  that  no  rights  should  be  lost  for 
non-user  during  his  administration,  led  him  into  sharp  col- 
lision with  the  Authorities  of  the  India  Company,  and, 
finally,  into  very  serious  troubles.  But  1  have  seen  no 
evidence  to  show  that  he  practised,  or  attempted — as  he 
was  accused — any  imitation  of  those  Barons  of  France, 
of  whom  history  records  that  they  put  to  death,  or  muti- 
lated, such  persons  as  presumed  to  appeal  from  the  sen- 
tences of  their  courts  ;  nor  indeed,  that  he  ventured  on 
any  other,  and  less  atrocious,  means  of  securing  such  an 
object. 

The  truth,  I  think,  is  that  the  India  Company,  on  ma- 
ture deliberation,  were  not  quite  satisfied  with  the  work 
of  their  own  hands,  and  they  manifested  too  much  disposi- 
tion to  reclaim,  or  at  least  to  limit  and  restrain,  by  unfair 
proceedings,  some  of  those  large  powers  and  privileges 


125 

which  they  had  at  first  so  freely  bestowed.*  The  Direc- 
tor Van  Rensselaer,  shrewd,  sagacious,  and  far-seeing, 
had  undoubtedly  possessed  himself  of  eminent  advan- 
tages at  Rensselaerwyck.  The  point  where  he  took  his 
station  was,  at  the  beginning,  the  chief  Mart  of  the  Fur 
trade  in  the  Province,  and  so  it  must  long  continue  to  be ; 
and  until  the  purchase  and  settlement  made  by  the  Pa- 
troon,  this  Mart,  and  the  trade  there,  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  Company,  and  protected  by  the  Armament  at 
Fort  Orange.  The  Company,  moreover,  in  their  Charter 
to  Patroons,  while  they  granted  to  them  the  free  liberty 
of  traffic,  with  their  Coasters,  "  from  Florida  to  Terra 
Neuf,"  and  even  a  share  in  the  Cod  Fishery,  had  been 
careful  to  reserve  to  themselves  an  exclusive  right,  every 
where,  to  the  trade  in  peltries — but  with  this  exception, 
that  the  Patroons  might  enjoy  that  trade  also,  on  certain 
specified  terms,  at  those  points  and  places  where  the 
Company  might  not  maintain  a  trading  establishment. 
Under  this  stipulation  in  the  Charter,  the  Fur  trade  at 
this  important  point  fell  eventually  into  the  hands  of  the 
Proprietor  of  the  Colony — for,  after  a  few  years,  the  Com- 
pany, engrossed  I  suppose  with  other  matters,  ceased  to 

*  In  a  Letter  from  the  Directors  in  Holland  to  the  Governor  of  the  Pro- 
vince, dated  March,  1657,  manifesting  throughout  great  jealousy  of  the 
power  of  the  Patroon,  they  say,  speaking  of  the  Authority  exercised  in  this 
Colony — "  this  example  makes  us  averse  to  permit  any  one  in  future  such  an 
unlimited  Colonization  and  Jurisdiction." 

4  Alb.  Records,  p.  5Si: 


136 

supply  their  Trading  House  in  Fort  Orange  with  the  ne- 
cessary articles  of  Merchandize  with  which  to  carry  on 
the  traffic  with  the  Indians.  Not  only  was  the  derelict 
trade  promptly  seized  and  engrossed  by  the  Patroon— 
being  then,  1644,  the  original  Killian  Van  Rensselaer— 
but  measures  were  immediately  taken  to  secure  it,  if  need 
be,  by  force  of  arms,  against  all  impertinent  intermed- 
dling with  it.  This  was  the  purpose  with  which  Bearen 
Island  was  fortified,  and  a  garrison  placed  there.  The 
Company's  own  vessels  might  still  have  free  access  to 
Fort  Orange  ;  to  them  the  navigation  of  the  River  was 
open  as  ever — but  not  so  the  vessels  of  independent  tra- 
ders. These  could,  of  course,  find  no  port  to  enter  or 
traffic  in  above  Bearen  Island,  except  within  the  limits  of 
Rensselaerwyck,  and  every  independent  trader  would 
learn  the  terms  on  which  the  port  of  the  Colony  might 
be  entered,  on  making  a  respectful  inquiry  at  the  Fortress 
of  Rensselaerstein. 

This  proceeding  was  viewed  with  exceeding  jealousy 
and  distrust,  by  the  Director  General  of  New  Amsterdam ; 
but  it  was  persisted  in,  in  spite  of  the  strongest  remon- 
strances ;  and  when,  by  the  death  of  the  Proprietor,  the 
administration  and  care  of  the  Colony,  in  behalf  of  his 
Heir,  devolved  on  the  Commander  Van  Slecktenhoorst 
and  Gov.  Van  Twiller,  nothing  certainly,  within  the  limits 
of  a  legitimate  authority,  was  omitted,  to  secure  to  the  Co- 
loriy  all  its  rights,  and  all  its  advantages.  From  this  time 
forward,  a  systematic  encroachment  on  the  rights  of  the 


127 

Colony  was  made  by  the  Company.    The  Company  had 
never  purchased,  and  did  not  own,  a  foot  of  land  within 
the  Colony.     The  soil  on  which  Fort  Orange  stood  was 
included  in  the  purchase  made  by  the  Patroon.    Yet  not 
only  was  the  Fort  itself  maintained,  without  necessity, 
if    not  against   right,  but  a  claim  was  set  up  to  as 
much  land  around  it  as  would  be  swept  by  the  range  of 
its  guns.     The  Trading  Factory  of  the  Patroon  had  been 
reared,  originally,  on  the  very  borders  of  the  dry  Moat 
which  surrounded  the  Fortress,  and  near  it  the  cottages 
of  a  village  settlement  had  already  begun  to  cluster.  This 
was  the  village  of  Beverwyck — a  neat  and  promising  lit- 
tle Hamlet,  the  germinating  principle  of  the  future  City 
of  Albany — and  forming  beyond  all  question,  a  part  of 
the  Colony  of  Rensselaerwyck.     It  was  the   Patroon's 
village,  planted  on  his  own  land,  under  his  leave  and  au- 
spices, by  his  own  colonists,  brought  into  the  country  at 
his  own  cost.     This  was  a  case  which  had  been  prospec- 
tively provided  for  in  the  Charter  from  the  Company,  by 
expressly  conceding  to  the  Patroon  the  right  to  govern, 
by  officers  and  magistrates  of  his  own  appointment,  any 
town,  or  city,  of  which  he  should  be  the  founder.     But 
the  Company  early  determined  not  to  permit  this  Colony 
to  become  too  prosperous,  or  the  Patroons  to  acquire  too 
much  consideration  and  power.     By  claiming  the  territo- 
ry around  the  Fort  within  the  sweep  of  their  guns,  they 
brought  the  entire  village  of  Beverwyck  within  the  grasp 
of  their  unwarrantable  demands.    They  first  insisted  that 


128 

the  Commander  Van  Slecktenhporst  should  erect  no  more 
dwellings  for  his  Colonists  in  that  quarter.     The  worthy 
Commander  protested,   and  went  on  as   usual.     Gov. 
Stuyvesant  sent  a  military  expedition — that  is  to  say,  an 
officer  with  a  handful  of  soldiers  and  sailors,  who  took  a 
fortnight's  time  for  their  campaign  up  the  river,  and  en- 
tered the  peaceful  village  of  Beverwyck  in  warlike  and 
hostile  array.     They  even  dared  to  enter  the  dwelling 
and  castle  of  the  Patroon,  with  arms  in  their  hands.     But 
great  as  was  this  outrage  and  violence  offered  to  the  dig- 
nity and  rights  of  an  independent  Patroon,  by  an  armed 
invasion  of  his  territory  and  jurisdiction — so,  at  least,  was 
it  esteemed  by  Commander  Van  Slecktenhoorst,  who  as- 
saulted the  proceeding  with  Proclamations  and  Protests 
in  unsparing  quantity — the  expedition  was  a  fruitless  one, 
and  Gov.  Stuyvesant  took  nothing  by  his  irregular  motion. 
The  act  was  even  disavowed  by  the  authorities  in  Hol- 
land ;  they  affected  utterly  to  disbelieve  that  the  "  hon- 
orable, valiant,  wise  and  prudent  Petrus  Stuyvesandt" 
could  ever  have  offered  such  an  indignity  to  the  honora- 
ble and  valiant  Van  Rensselaer  of  Rensselaerwyck.     In 
the  mean  time,  the  constructing  of  houses  in  the  Hamlet 
proceeded,  and  the  prudent  Governor  changed  his  mode 
of  attack.     He  undertook  to  give  to  the  inhabitants  in  the 
village  permanent  leases  for  the  soil,  and  to  absolve  them 
from  their  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Patroon.     He  even 
appointed  magistrates  for  Eeverwyck,  and  caused  Courts 
to  be  opened,  and  justice  to  be  administered  there,  in  the 


129 

name  of  the  Provincial  authorities.  All  this  while  the 
full-blooded  Netherlander,  Van  Slecktenhoorst,  was  nei- 
ther dismayed  nor  idle.  He  went  on  with  the  construction 
of  his  houses  in  Beverwyck ;  and  he  gave  personal  notice 
to  the  Company's  officer  at  Fort  Orange,  who  had  been 
directed  to  put  that  Fortress  in  repair,  that  he  must  not 
touch  a  stone  or  a  stick  of  timber  for  that  use,  within  the 
Colony  of  Rensselaerwyck.  This  was  awkward  for  Mr. 
Commissioner  Van  Brugge.  He  held  back  for  instruc- 
tions, and,  as  necessity  knows  no  law,  he  was  ordered  to 
take  the  materials  for  repairs  wherever  he  could  find 
them,  on  grounds  uncultivated  or  unenclosed.  We  may 
suppose  that,  with  the  sturdy  Commander  of  Rensselaer- 
wyck to  deal  with,  he  found  the  execution  of  his  orders 
neither  easy  nor  pleasant.  For  several  years  the  contro- 
versy went  on,  and  at  last,  the  purposes  of  the  Director 
General  and  the  Company  were  only  consummated  by 
an  act  of  treachery.  Van  Slecktenhoorst  was  arrested  at 
Manhattan,  thrown  into  the  Keep  of  Fort  Amsterdam, 
and  detained  a  close  prisoner  until  a  new  Director  for  his 
Master's  Colony  was  appointed.  He  was  then  released, 
but  only  for  the  purpose  of  performing  the  ceremonial 
of  installing  his  Successor  in  his  place,  which  he  affirmed 
could  be  lawfully  done  by  no  one  but  himself. 

With  a  Director  more  to  the  taste  of  the  Governor  and 
the  Lords  Directors  of  the  Company  at  Amsterdam,  the 
Colony  was  treated  with  more  apparent  respect,  but  in 
reality  with  no  less  injustice  than  before.     Gov.  Stuyve- 


130 

sant  was  formally  instructed  by  them  to  take  care  that  he 
gave  no  cause  of  offence  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Colos 
ny.  They  offered  their  congratulations  on  the  peaceable 
state  of  affairs  between  them  and  the  people  of  Fort 
Orange  ;  but  they  did  not  forget  to  inform  the  Governor, 
at  the  same  time,  how  important  it  was,  and  how  much 
it  concerned  both  "  equity  and  liberty,"  that  the  limits 
between  Fort  Orange  and  Rensselaerwyck  should  be  de- 
finitively settled.  Keeping  this  object  steadily  in  view, 
the  footing  which  the  Company  had  obtained  in  Bever- 
wyck  was  carefully  preserved,  and  their  authority  there 
gradually  extended.  Finally,  the  Governor  ventured  to 
mark  out  the  boundaries  of  the  possession  claimed  for 
the  Company  as  the  proprietors  of  Fort  Orange.  These 
boundaries  modestly  embraced  a  mile  in  extent  on  the 
River,  taking  in  the  entire  village  of  Beverwyck,  and 
forming  that  base  line  which  was  afterwards  used  in  the 
original  Charter  of  the  city  of  Albany,  and  upon  which  a 
territory  of  sixteen  square  miles  was  carved  out  of  the 
Manor  of  Rensselaerwyck  for  the  uses  of  the  city.  It  is 
worth  while  to  add,  in  this  connection,  that  it  was  not  at 
last,  deemed  safe  by  the  English  Gov  Dongan,  to  issue  his 
Patent  for  this  territory  to  the  city,  until  he  had  first  ob- 
tained from  the  Patroon  of  that  day  a  formal  Release  of 
the  land  to  the  King.  That  Release  was  executed  two 
days  before  the  Charter  of  the  city  was  granted. 

I  have  dwelt  on  the  affairs  of  this  Colony  during  the 
rule  of  the  Dutch  Authorities  in  the  Province  of  New 


131 

York,  at  such  considerable  length,  though  still  with  small 
justice  to  a  subject  of  deep  interest,  that  I  must  now  hasten 
forward,  in  a  very  unsatisfactory  manner,  to  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  history  on  which  I  have  entered.  The  Eng- 
lish Conquest  of  this  Province  took  place  in  1664.  Jere- 
mias  Van  Rensselaer,  the  second  son  of  the  original  Pro- 
prietor, was  then  in  possession  of  the  Colony  of  Rens- 
selaerwyck.  He  lost  no  time  in  applying  to  Gov.  Nichols 
to  be  confirmed  in  his  possession  and  rights.  This  was 
readily  granted  by  the  Governor,  in  accordance  with  the 
general  stipulation  he  had  given  at  the  surrender ;  to  ope- 
rate, however,  only  to  give  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer  time  to 
obtain  a  regular  Patent  of  Confirmation  from  the  Duke 
of  York,  for  whom  the  Conquest  of  the  Province  had 
been  made ;  and  in  the  mean  time,  it  was  made  his  duty 
to  see  that  his  Colonists — heretofore  his  subjects — should 
become  the  proper  subjects  of  King  Charles  II,  by  per- 
sonally swearing  allegiance  to  him.  In  the  confusion  of 
the  time,  and  it  is  probable  also  for  a  particular  reason 
which  will  be  referred  to  directly,  no  Patent  for  this  Es- 
tate was  given  for  several  years.  Meanwhile,  the  posses- 
sion and  right  were  continued  to  Van  Rensselaer,  by  the  or- 
ders of  successive  Governors,  and  the  warrants  of  the 
Duke.  In  this  state  of  things,  the  Province  again  chang- 
ed masters.  Nine  years  after  the  surrender,  the  Authority 
of  the  States  General  was  again  established  over  New 
Netherland — only,  however,  to  be  returned  into  the  hands 
of  the  English  the  next  year.     But  there  was   work  for 


132 

Van  Rensselaer  to  do  in  this  brief  period.  He  was  call- 
ed before  the  Lords  Commanders  and  the  Honorable 
Tribune  of  War  at  Fort  William  Henry,  to  tender,  for 
himself  and  his  people,  his  oath  of  Allegiance  to  the  new 
powers ;  and  he  was  then  sent  back  to  the  government  of 
his  Colony,  but  with  greatly  restricted  authority.  The 
right  of  the  inhabitants  to  a  voice  in  the  selection  of  their 
own  magistrates,  was  distinctly  recognized.  They  were 
to  nominate  twice  the  number  required,  and  he  was  to 
appoint  from  their  nominations. 

In  1674,  the  English  rule  over  the  Province  was  re- 
stored, and  Jeremias  Van  Rensselaer  died  the  same  year. 
This  event — the  death  of  Jeremias,  in  possession  of  the 
Estate,  with  a  claim  of  right  more  or  less  extensive — 
produced,  it  would  seem,  some  embarrassment  in  regard 
to  the  succession  ;  and  this  was  apparently  increased  by 
doubts  about  the  true  law  of  descent  applicable  to  the 
case.  Jeremias  was  a  second  son  ;  the  eldest  son  of  the 
original  Proprietor  was  Johannes  Baptista,  and  was  un- 
doubtedly, according  to  one  rule  of  the  Feudal  law — this 
being  a  feudal  estate — sole  heir  to  the  Colony  and  title 
of  his  father.  But  Johannes,  who  was  the  person  spoken 
of  by  the  bold  and  faithful  Van  Slecktenhoorst  as  his 
Orphan  Patroon,  and  who  had  been  early  in  the  Colony, 
had  returned  to  Holland,  while  his  younger  brother,  Jere- 
mias, had  been  placed  in  possession  with  all  the  powers 
of  government  and  control,  and,  it  is  not  improbable,  with 
some  equitable  understanding  between  the  brothers  in 


133 

regard  to  the  succession.  At  any  rate,  a  claim  was  set 
up  by  the  son  of  Jeremias,  as  his  father  had  occupied 
with  some  claim  of  right,  and  died  in  possession.  When, 
however,  Johannes  died  he  left  an  only  son,  who  was,  of 
course,  by  the  rule  of  primogeniture,  the  sole  heir  to  the  in- 
heritance. But,  then,  there  were  other  descendants  of  the 
same  common  ancestor,  and  they  put  in  a  claim — or  one 
was  preferred  for  them — on  the  ground  of  the  civil  law, 
which  had  been  adopted  by  the  Dutch,  and  which  cast  in- 
heritances, in  equal  portions,  on  all  descendants,  male  and 
female,  in  the  same  degree  of  affinity  to  the  ancestor. 
The  civil  law  of  the  Dutch  could  not,  however,  1  think, 
have  been  applicable  to  Estates,  like  the  Colony  of  Rens- 
selaerwyck,  held  by  a  strictly  feudal  tenure,  and  where, 
according  to  the  notion  of  the  times,  the  personal  dignity 
of  the  proprietor  was  to  be  cared  for  and  preserved.*  In 
this  state  of  things,  it  was  proposed,  and  an  order  to  that 
effect  was  given  to  Gov.  Andros,  that  a  Charter  should 

*  The  rule  of  succession,  or  inheritance,  under  the  feudal  law,  was  differ- 
ent in  the  different  countries  of  Europe,  and  seems  to  have  been  modified  at 
pleasure  to  suit  the  notions  and  the  circumstances  of  the  times  in  each.  The 
Seigniories  in  Canada,  under  the  French,  were  not  subject  to  the  law  of  pri- 
mogeniture ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  did  they  descend,  like  the  peasants' 
lands,  to  the  children  in  equal  portions.  The  eldest  son  represented  the 
father,  and  was  to  take  such  a  share  as  might  enable  him  to  maintain  his 
\  father's  rank  and  station  in  life,  while  the  younger  children  were  not  left 
without  some  legal  provision. 

"  View  of  Canada  while  subject  to  France." — MS.  p.  21. 


134 

be  issued  which  should,  for  the  present,  without  deter- 
mining the  rule  of  succession  in  the  case,  recognize  the 
proprietorship  of  the  right  heirs  of  the  first  owner.  I 
think  it  not  uncharitable  to  say,  from  the  circumstancei, 
that  the  Duke  of  York  was  reluctant  to  acknowledge  a 
proprietorship  in  any  body,  to  so  considerable  a  portion 
of  that  princely  estate — the  Province  of  New- York — 
to  which  he  had  just  secured  a  title,  and  would  have  been 
glad  if  he  could  have  found  some  plausible  grounds,  at 
least  for  cutting  down  this  Dutch  principality  to  some 
more  moderate  dimensions. 

It  is  supposed,  not  without  good  reason,  that  the  grad  • 
tude  of  Charles  II,  on  the  recollection  of  hospitalities 
and  favors  received  at  the  hands  of  the  representative 
head  of  this  family,  when  that  accomplished  but  dissolute 
Monarch  was  an  exiled  and  necessitous  refugee  in  Hol- 
land, led  him  to  interpose  in  behalf  of  the  heirs  of  the  old 
Director  Van  Rensselaer,  by  means  of  which  that 
order  was  obtained  from  the  King's  Brother,  the  Duke  of 
York,  to  which  I  have  alluded.*  As  it  was,  however,  no 
execution  of  this  order  took  place  until  1685,  when  Gov. 
Dongan  caused  a  Charter  to  be  issued  for  that  purpose. 
This  Charter  was  granted  to  two  persons.     One  of  these 


"  There  is  now  in  poasession  of  the  Van  Rensselaer  family,  at  the  Manor 
House,  a  snufif-box,  vnth  the  Miniature  of  King  Charles  II  upon  it,  which 
was  presented  by  that  Prince,  to  their  Ancestor,  on  the  occasion  refer- 
ferred  to. 


135 

was  Killian  Van  Rensselaer,  only  son  and  heir  of  Johan- 
nes, and  the  other  was  Killian  Van  Rensselaer,  the  eldest 
son  of  Jeremias ;  and  the  Charter  was,  in  terms  and  ef- 
fect, a  grant  in  trust  for  the  right  heirs  of  the  Original 
Proprietor  of  the  Colony.  It  embraced  the  ancient  posses- 
sions of  the  Patroons,  nearly  entire,  and  defined  their 
boundaries  ;  and  it  converted,  in  express  terms,  the  old 
Dutch  Colony,  into  an  English  Lordship,  or  Manor,  with 
a  broad  tract,  twenty-four  English  miles  by  forty-eight  in 
extent — some  comparatively  small  parcels  of  land  ex- 
cepted— and  with  the  noble  Hudson  pouring  its  flood  of 
navigable  waters  from  North  to  South,  through  the  cen- 
tre of  the  territory.  Two  years  after,  one  of  the  Kil- 
lians,  the  son  of  John  Baptiste  Van  Rensselaer,  died,  and 
left  no  issue  to  succeed  to  his  interest.  The  other  Kil- 
lian, his  cousin  german,  the  son  of  Jeremias,  became 
now  the  representative  and  sole  heir,  if  the  rule  ot  pri- 
mogeniture was  to  prevail,  to  the  inheritance  of  his 
Grand-father,  the  first  Proprietor  of  Rensselaerwyck. 
In  1704,  by  the  order  of  Queen  Anne,  this  rule  was  defi- 
nitively settled  and  adopted  in  the  case,  and  Killian,  the 
son  of  Jeremias,  received  a  Charter,  granting  to  him  the 
Manor  and  Lordship  of  Rensselaerwyck,  in  absolute  pro- 
priety. So  far  as  appears,  this  was  done  with  the  ac- 
quiescence of  all ;  and  whether  all  did  acquiesce,  or  not, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  it  was  done  in  strict  accordance 
with  legal  right.  The  feudal  law,  however  modified  by 
the  Dutch,  would  have  cast  the  main  part  of  the  inherit- 


136 

ance,  if  not  the  whole,  on  the  eldest  son  living,  m  the  di- 
rect line  of  descent.  But  it  was,  after  all,  the  English 
law  of  descents,  and  not  the  Dutch,  which  was  applica- 
ble, and  applied  to  the  case.  The  English  claimed — with 
how  much  truth  and  propriety  it  is  useless  now  to  en- 
quire, since  the  whole  matter  was  in  their  own  hands — 
that  they  held  the  Province  of  New  York,  not  by  right  of 
Conquest,  but  by  right  of  Discovery  ;  that  the  country 
was  theirs  all  the  while  ;  and  that  the  Dutch,  and  all 
others,  who  had  made  settlements  and  acquired  property 
in  it,  while  the  estates  of  owners  for  the  time  should  not 
be  disturbed  or  brought  into  question,  must  submit  to  the 
sway  of  the  English  law  in  the  Province,  from  the  mo- 
ment the  English  Authorities  were  in  condition  to  enforce 
it.*  I  may  here  add,  that  from  this  first  Lord  jof  the 
Manor,  through  his  second  son — the  eldest  having  died 
without  issue — the  late  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  was 
the  third  only,  in  the  direct  line  of  descent.  The  Manor 
had  never  been  disposed  of  by  will ;  and  it  had 
never  been  subject  to  entail ;  it  took  the  course  of  the 
canons  of  descent  established  by  the  law  of  England,  and 
came  to  the  late  Proprietor  by  right  of  primogeniture. 

•  On  this  ground,  therefore,  the  English  rule  of  primogeniture  was  to 
prevail  in  regard  to  all  inhabitants  in  the  Province  of  New  York ;  whereas, 
if  the  right  of  England  to  the  Province  had  been  the  right  of  Conquest  only, 
the  law  of  descent,  with  all  other  laws,  as  established  among,  and  by,  the 
the  Dutch,  would  have  prevailed,  until  altered  and  changed  by  the  con- 
queror. 


137 

Between  a  Dutch  feudal  Colony,  with  its  Patroon  and 
Commanders,  its  forts  and  soldiers,  its  high  and  low  ju- 
risdiction— and  an  English  Manor,  with  its  Lord  and  Stew- 
ards, its  Courts-leet  and  Courts-baron,  there  was  some 
resemblance,  and  some  difference.  There  was  a  strong 
family  likeness,  with  a  marked  diversity  of  features.  They 
were  both  of  feudal  origin  and  character.  They  were 
both  Estates  of  dignity  and  power.  But  a  marked  dis- 
tinction is  found  between  them,  when  we  come  to  look  at 
the  different  estimate  which  was  evidently  put  upon  the 
people  belonging  to  the  Estate,  in  the  two  cases.  We 
have  seen  already  what  was  their  condition  in  the  Colo- 
ny— not  one  certainly  of  oppression,  but  not  one  of  free- 
dom. They  were  regarded  as  men — ^with  rights  and  pri- 
vileges— but  as  men  to  be  protected,  and  not  men  who 
could,  or  ought  to  have,  much  right  or  authority  to  pro- 
tect themselves.  In  the  Manor — I  speak  now  of  the  Manor 
of  Rensselaerwyck,  as  created  by  express  Charter — ^the 
case  was  somewhat  changed,  in  the  first  place,  it  was 
only  in  the  King's  Courts  that  the  tenants  could  be  called 
to  answer  for  high  crimes,  and  there  they  must  have  a 
Jury  of  the  vicinage  to  try  them.  Then,  although  for 
misdemeanors,  minor  offences  and  nuisances,  they  were 
liable  to  be  prosecuted  in  the  Lord's  Courts,  and  also  to 
be  impleaded  there  by  each  other  in  their  disputes  about 
property,  where  the  amounts  involved  were  not  large  ; 
and  although  all  controversies  about  the  right  to  lands  in 


138 

the  Manor  were  to  be  determined,  in  the  first  instance,  in 
the  same  Courts ;  yet  they  were  themselves — the  tenants 
who  were  freeholders — the  judges,  and,  in  strictness,  the 
sole  judges,  of  these  very  Courts ;  the  Stewards  were 
properly  the  Registers,  and  not  the  judges  of  these  tri- 
bunals. And,  finally,  the  consideration  in  which  the  peo- 
ple of  the  Manor  were  held,  was  manifested  in  the  voice 
they  had  in  legislation,  through  their  right  to  elect,  with 
the  Lord  of  the  Manor,  a  Deputy  to  represent  them  in 
the  General  Assembly.  In  all  this,  the  condition  of  the 
tenantry  was  improved,  and  it  was  so  in  some  other 
things.  They  had  passed  under  a  new  Government — 
one  which  had  impressed  upon  it  some  Saxon  notions 
about  liberty  and  human  rights,  and  of  which  they  were 
enjoying,  in  some  degree,  the  benefit. 

Still,  however,  the  authority  and  privileges  of  the  Ma- 
norial Chief  were  not  inconsiderable.  The  writs  for 
the  holding. of  the  Baronial  Courts  were  to  be  issued  by 
him,  and  it  was  his  right  to  preside  in  those  Courts,  in 
person,  or  by  his  deputed  Steward.  To  him  belonged  all 
fines  and  amercements,  imposed  on  offenders  within  the 
Manor,  whether  by  his  own  Courts,  or  by  the  Assizes,  the 
Sessions  of  the  Peace,  or  the  Oyer  and  Terminer.  To 
him  appertained  also,  all  waifs,  estrays,  wrecks,  deodends, 
and  the  like,  with  the  goods  forfeited  by  felons  within  his 
Lordship.  He  had  the  important  right  of  advowson — 
the  sole  right  to  name  and  present  the  ministers  to  all 


churches,  built,  and  endowed  with  glebe,  on  his  demesnes  ^ 
and  authority  was  given  him  to  elect  a  Representative  to 
the  Legislative  Assembly — ^uniting  the  freeholders  and  in- 
habitants with  him  in  the  election  ;  the  benefit  of  course 
resulted  almost  always  to  himself.  The  choice  was  quite 
sure  to  fall  on  himself,  or  on  his  friend  and  nominee. 

On  looking  into  the  Records  of  our  Colonial  Legisla- 
ture, I  find  the  fact  of  representation  from  the  Manor — 
which  was  distinct  in  this  respect  from  the  City  and 
County  of  Albany — just  as  I  had  expected.  From  the 
first  Provincial  Assembly  held  after  the  accession  of 
William  IIL  in  1691,  down  to  the  last  in  1775,  when  the 
Revolution  broke  out — a  period  of  eighty-four  years — the 
place  of  Representative  from  the  Manor  was  always 
filled ;  frequently  by  the  Proprietor  himself,  and  if  not  by 
him,  by  reason  of  his  minority  or  other  disability,  then  al- 
ways by  some  member,  or  some  friend,  of  the  family. 
The  first  Deputy  from  the  Manor  was  Killian,  the  son  of 
Jeremias  Van  Rensselaer  ;  after  twelve  years  in  the  As- 
sembly, he  was  called  to  the  Provincial  Council.  The 
last  Deputy  was  Gen.  Abraham  Ten  Broeck.  He  was 
the  uncle  of  the  late  Patroon,  by  marriage,  and  his 
Guardian  during  his  minority,  and  had  the  care  of  his 
Estate.  He  represented  the  Manor  for  fifteen  years,  and 
as  long  as  there  was  a  Colonial  Legislature  in  which  it 
could  be  represented. 

While,  however,  the  Proprietor,  or  some  family  ,or 


140 

personal  friend  of  his,  uniformly  secured  the  advantage— 
if  advantage  it  was — of  an  election  to  the  Assembly,  it 
is  only  an  act  of  justice  to  say,  that  the  interests  of  the 
Tenants  appear  to  have  been,  without  exception,  faith- 
fully represented — however  it  might  be  supposed  that 
cases  would  arise,  in  which  the  interests  of  the  Tenants 
and  those  of  the  Proprietor  might  not  be  identical.  But 
this  is  not  all,  nor  the  highest  praise  due  to  the  Represen- 
tatives of  Rensselaerwyck.  During  almost  the  entire 
period  of  eighty-four  years  just  referred  to,  the  political 
condition  of  the  Province  was  unquiet.  The  tendencies 
towards  popular  liberty  were  constantly  manifesting  them- 
selves, and  bringing  the  Colonial  Assemblies  into  sharp 
collision  with  the  Royal  Governors.  The  Governors,  as 
a  general  thing,  went  for  prerogative  and  power ;  while 
the  Assemblies  had  enough  of  the  blood  of  the  Saxons 
infused  into  them,  to  stand  out  for  popular  rights,  and 
some  of  the  guaranties  of  freedom.  I  do  not  think  that 
the  Dutch,  though  brought  up  in  a  different  school,  were, 
on  the  whole,  a  whit  behind  their  fellows  in  acquiring 
those  liberal  lessons  which  were  studied,  recited  and  en- 
acted in  these  political  Colleges.  But  how  was  it  with 
those  among  the  Hollanders,  who  had  themselves,  or 
whose  ancestors  had,  but  lately  come  into  the  country, 
expressly  with  a  view  to  the  founding  and  maintaining 
in  it,  in  their  own  persons,  and  in  their  children,  a  high 
feudal  aristocracy;  and  whose  pretensions,  in  this  re- 


141 

gard,  had  been  expressly  recognized  by  the  new  Powers, 
with  only  such  modifications  as  resulted,  when  an  Eng- 
lish Monarchy  succeeded  to  the  dominion  of  a  Dutch  Re- 
public?    What  was  their  course  and  conduct  in  the  po- 
litical conflicts  of  the  times  ?     Did  they  struggle  to  retain 
their  hold  on  these  personal  advantages  ?     Did  they  seek, 
by  a  natural  sympathy,  to  strengthen  the  arm  of  irrespon- 
sible power,  and  encourage  the  foot  of  tyranny  to  press 
more  strongly  on  the  neck  of  prostrate   humanity,  as 
symptoms   of  life,  and  the  awakening  consciousness  of 
strength,  began  to  exhibit  themselves  ?    Quite  the  contra- 
ry, as  the  records  of  the  period  shew.     When  the   As- 
sembly, at  its  Session  in  1691,  framed  and  published  its 
Declaration  of  Rights — a  remarkable  act  for  the  period, 
and  the  first  example  of  the   sort,  I  think,  among  the 
American  Colonies — the  Proprietor  and  Representative 
of  Rensselaerwyck  assisted  in  that  bold  and  manly  mea- 
sure.    This  was  the  very  earliest  occasion  on  which 
the  political  bias  of  his  mind  could  have  displayed  itself. 
Ten  years  afterwards,  I  find  this  same   individual — a 
proud  feudal  dignitary  of  the  land — putting  his  name,  with 
only  four  others  of  the  Assembly,  to  a  paper,  which  insisted 
so  strongly  on  the  rights  of  the  Assembly,  in  opposition 
to  the  encroachments  of  Authority,  that  that  Body  itself 
felt  obliged,  in  order  to  charm  down  the  angry  elements 
that  had  been  roused,  to  pronounce  the  instrument  dis- 
loyal, and  even  to  expel  its  author  from  the  House.    In 


142 

1747,  the  Royal  Governor,  Clinton,  committed  against 
the  House  a  gross  breach  of  privilege,  and  was  about  to 
follow  an  act  of  injustice  with  an  act  of  tyranny,  and 
dissolve  the  Assembly.  But  the  Assembly  did  not  choose 
to  receive  this  last  Message  from  his  Excellency,  till  they 
had  transacted  a  little  business  on  their  own  account. 
They  locked  the  doors  of  their  Chamber,  and  laid  the  key 
on  the  table,  and  proceeded  to  charge  and  prime  some 
strong  Resolutions,  to  be  let  off  with  heavy  denunciations 
against  the  Governor,  when  the  doors  should  be  opened  ; 
they  made  provision,  at  the  same  time,  for  a  Manifesto, 
to  be  drawn  up  and  fulminated,  after  the  dispersion  of  the 
Members,  and  which  is  one  of  the  most  elaborate  and 
remarkable  papers  of  our  ante-republican  history.*  In 
all  this  proceeding,  the  Representative  of  Rensselaer- 
wyck — a  brother  of  the  Proprietor— did  not  hesitate  to 
take  his  part,  on  the  side  of  right  and  liberty.  I  have  al- 
ready stated,  that  Abraham  Ten  Broeck  was  the  last  Re- 
presentative of  Rensselaerwyck  in  the  Legislature  of  the 
Colony.  He  was  the  brother-in-law  of  the  late  Mr.  Van 
Rensselaer's  father — who  died  at  the  early  age  of  twen- 
ty-seven— and,  as  I  have  stated,  the  uncle  and  Guardian 
of  the  son  ;  and  he  did  not  misrepresent  either  in  acitng 


*  This  extraordinary  Paper,  making  sineen  closely  printed  folio  pages,  in 
double  columns,  may  be  found  in  Lot's  Journal  of  the  Colonial  Assembly  of 
New  York,  vol.  ii.  p.  206. 


143 

the  part  of  a  good  patriot.  It  is  well  known,  that  in  the 
last  brief  Session  of  the  Assembly,  held  early  in  1775,  a 
considerable  part,  sometimes  a  majority  of  the  House, 
were  found  to  shrink  from  any  very  bold  and  decided  mea- 
sures. Several  Resolutions  were  rejected,  which  it  was 
feared  might  seem  to  commit  the  Assembly  to  the  cause 
of  the  approaching  Revolution.  Gen.  Ten  Broeck  had 
no  fears,  and  voted  on  these  occasions  with  the  country 
and  for  the  country.  And,  finally,  when  the  Revolution 
came,  he  fearlessly  plunged  in,  with  others,  to  swim  with 
and  save  his  country,  or  to  sink  with  her.  He  was  a 
Member,  and  the  President,  of  the  Convention  which 
formed  the  first  Constitution  of  this  State — that  Conven- 
tion which  sat,  at  various  times,  and  in  seven  different 
places,  as  the  exigencies  of  the  war  permitted  or  com- 
pelled, before  the  completion  of  its  labors. 

With  this  brief  relation,  I  conclude  this  slight  sketch  of 
the  affairs  of  Rensselaerwyck.  It  is  not  a  little  grati- 
fying to  find,  that  even  here,  where  provision  had  been 
originally  made,  and  which  had  been  carefully  continued 
and  preserved,  to  plant  a  strong  Baronial  and  Aristocrati- 
cal  interest  in  the  virgin  soil  of  the  New  World,  in  imi- 
tation of  the  established  institutions  of  Europe — to  bear 
sway  by  combining  to  form  a  reigning  oligarchy,  or  else 
to  stand  as  supporters  and  buttresses  around  a  superior 
regal  power — even  here,  not  only  was  nothing  ever  found 
on  which  the  enemies  of  freedom  could  rely  for  support ; 


144 

but,  during,  all  the  preparatory  period, and  when  the  occa- 
sion came  at  last  to  call  out  the  brave  and  patriotic — those 
who  would  be  free  and  make  their  country  so — in  de- 
fence of  human  rights  and  popular  liberty,  a  spirit  was 
manifested  in  full  accordance  with  the  popular  movement 
and  temper  of  the  times.  The  Manor  of  Rensselaer- 
wyck — with  whatever  influence  belonged  to  it — by  no 
means  inconsiderable — ^was  found  invariably  on  the  side 
of  freedom  and  the  people. 


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